retro-enforcement

Skill: Retro Enforcement

Purpose

Ensure retrospectives happen on schedule and that their action items are tracked in GitHub Issues — not markdown checklists.

This skill addresses a specific, measured failure mode: 0% completion rate on markdown retro action items across 6 consecutive retrospectives. GitHub Issues have an 85%+ completion rate in the same squad. The format was the problem, not the people.

Core Function: Test-RetroOverdue

function Test-RetroOverdue {
    param(
        [string]$LogDir    = ".squad/log",
        [int]$WindowDays   = 7,
        [string]$Pattern   = "*retrospective*"
    )

    $cutoff = (Get-Date).AddDays(-$WindowDays)

    $retroLogs = Get-ChildItem -Path $LogDir -Filter $Pattern -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |
                 Where-Object { $_.LastWriteTime -ge $cutoff }

    return ($retroLogs.Count -eq 0)
}

Returns

• $true — No retro log found within the window. Retro is overdue. Block other work.
• $false — At least one retro log found within the window. Proceed normally.

Detection Logic

The function checks .squad/log/ for any file matching *retrospective* dated within the last $WindowDays days (default: 7). If none is found, the retro is overdue.

File naming convention: .squad/log/{ISO8601-timestamp}-retrospective.md

Example: .squad/log/2026-03-24T14-45-00Z-retrospective.md

Coordinator Integration

Call Test-RetroOverdue at the start of every round, before building the work queue.

# At round start — before any work queue construction
if (Test-RetroOverdue -LogDir ".squad/log" -WindowDays 7) {
    Write-Host "[RETRO] Retrospective overdue. Running before other work."

    # Spawn retro facilitator
    Invoke-RetroSession -Mode "catch-up"

    # Wait for retro log to be written
    # Then resume normal round
}

# Proceed with normal work queue
$workQueue = Get-PendingIssues | Sort-Object -Property Priority

Blocking Semantics

When Test-RetroOverdue returns $true: