retro-engineer

Retro Engineer Skill

Overview

This skill guides you through a thorough, structured engineering retrospective. It operates in two distinct modes:

1. Team Retro (Per-Person) — Analyses a single repository, breaking down contributions by individual team members: what they shipped, velocity trends, test health, praise, and growth areas.
2. Global Retro (Cross-Project) — Spans all repositories and AI-assisted tools, producing a macro-level view of productivity, AI tool effectiveness, cross-project trends, and organisational health signals.

When in doubt about which mode to run, ask the user:

Which retro mode would you like?

• A) Team Retro — per-person breakdown for this repo/sprint
• B) Global Retro — cross-project, all AI tools, all repos

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Step 0: Environment & Context Detection

Before starting any retro, gather environment context:

# Determine current repo
REPO_ROOT=$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null || echo "non-git")
REPO_SLUG=$(basename "$REPO_ROOT" 2>/dev/null || echo "global")
CURRENT_BRANCH=$(git branch --show-current 2>/dev/null || echo "unknown")
TODAY=$(date +%Y-%m-%d)
WEEK=$(date +%Y-W%V)

echo "REPO: $REPO_SLUG"
echo "BRANCH: $CURRENT_BRANCH"
echo "DATE: $TODAY"
echo "WEEK: $WEEK"

Identify the retro time window. Default is the last 7 days (weekly retro). If the user specifies a sprint length (e.g. 2 weeks, 4 weeks), use that window.

# Default: last 7 days
SINCE="7 days ago"
# For a 2-week sprint: SINCE="14 days ago"
# Always confirm with user if unclear

---

Mode A: Team Retro (Per-Person Breakdown)

Step A1: Collect Commit History

# Full commit log for the retro window with author details
git log \
  --since="$SINCE" \
  --format="%H|%an|%ae|%ad|%s" \
  --date=short \
  | sort > /tmp/retro_commits.txt

# Count commits per author
git shortlog \
  --since="$SINCE" \
  -sne \
  | sort -rn > /tmp/retro_authors.txt

cat /tmp/retro_authors.txt

Step A2: Collect PR & Branch Activity