name: retro version: 1.0.0 description: | Weekly engineering retrospective. Analyzes commit history, work patterns, and code quality metrics with persistent history and trend tracking. allowed-tools:
Generates a comprehensive engineering retrospective analyzing commit history, work patterns, and code quality metrics. Designed for a senior IC/CTO-level builder using Claude Code as a force multiplier.
When the user types /retro, run this skill.
/retro — default: last 7 days/retro 24h — last 24 hours/retro 14d — last 14 days/retro 30d — last 30 days/retro compare — compare current window vs prior same-length window/retro compare 14d — compare with explicit windowParse the argument to determine the time window. Default to 7 days if no argument given. Use --since="N days ago", --since="N hours ago", or --since="N weeks ago" (for w units) for git log queries. All times should be reported in Pacific time (use TZ=America/Los_Angeles when converting timestamps).
Argument validation: If the argument doesn't match a number followed by d, h, or w, the word compare, or compare followed by a number and d/h/w, show this usage and stop:
Usage: /retro [window]
/retro — last 7 days (default)
/retro 24h — last 24 hours
/retro 14d — last 14 days
/retro 30d — last 30 days
/retro compare — compare this period vs prior period
/retro compare 14d — compare with explicit window
First, fetch origin to ensure we have the latest:
git fetch origin main --quiet
Run ALL of these git commands in parallel (they are independent):
# 1. All commits in window with timestamps, subject, hash, files changed, insertions, deletions
git log origin/main --since="<window>" --format="%H|%ai|%s" --shortstat
# 2. Per-commit test vs total LOC breakdown (single command, parse output)
# Each commit block starts with COMMIT:<hash>, followed by numstat lines.
# Separate test files (matching test/|spec/|__tests__/) from production files.
git log origin/main --since="<window>" --format="COMMIT:%H" --numstat
# 3. Commit timestamps for session detection and hourly distribution
# Use TZ=America/Los_Angeles for Pacific time conversion
TZ=America/Los_Angeles git log origin/main --since="<window>" --format="%at|%ai|%s" | sort -n
# 4. Files most frequently changed (hotspot analysis)
git log origin/main --since="<window>" --format="" --name-only | grep -v '^$' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn
# 5. PR numbers from commit messages (extract #NNN patterns)
git log origin/main --since="<window>" --format="%s" | grep -oE '#[0-9]+' | sed 's/^#//' | sort -n | uniq | sed 's/^/#/'
Calculate and present these metrics in a summary table:
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Commits to main | N |
| PRs merged | N |
| Total insertions | N |
| Total deletions | N |
| Net LOC added | N |
| Test LOC (insertions) | N |
| Test LOC ratio | N% |
| Version range | vX.Y.Z.W → vX.Y.Z.W |
| Active days | N |
| Detected sessions | N |
| Avg LOC/session-hour | N |
Show hourly histogram in Pacific time using bar chart:
Hour Commits ████████████████
00: 4 ████
07: 5 █████
...
Identify and call out:
Detect sessions using 45-minute gap threshold between consecutive commits. For each session report:
Classify sessions:
Calculate:
Categorize by conventional commit prefix (feat/fix/refactor/test/chore/docs). Show as percentage bar:
feat: 20 (40%) ████████████████████
fix: 27 (54%) ███████████████████████████
refactor: 2 ( 4%) ██
Flag if fix ratio exceeds 50% — this signals a "ship fast, fix fast" pattern that may indicate review gaps.
Show top 10 most-changed files. Flag:
From commit diffs, estimate PR sizes and bucket them:
Focus score: Calculate the percentage of commits touching the single most-changed top-level directory (e.g., app/services/, app/views/). Higher score = deeper focused work. Lower score = scattered context-switching. Report as: "Focus score: 62% (app/services/)"
Ship of the week: Auto-identify the single highest-LOC PR in the window. Highlight it:
If the time window is 14 days or more, split into weekly buckets and show trends:
Count consecutive days with at least 1 commit to origin/main, going back from today:
# Get all unique commit dates (Pacific time) — no hard cutoff
TZ=America/Los_Angeles git log origin/main --format="%ad" --date=format:"%Y-%m-%d" | sort -u
Count backward from today — how many consecutive days have at least one commit? This queries the full history so streaks of any length are reported accurately. Display: "Shipping streak: 47 consecutive days"
Before saving the new snapshot, check for prior retro history:
ls -t .context/retros/*.json 2>/dev/null
If prior retros exist: Load the most recent one using the Read tool. Calculate deltas for key metrics and include a Trends vs Last Retro section:
Last Now Delta
Test ratio: 22% → 41% ↑19pp
Sessions: 10 → 14 ↑4
LOC/hour: 200 → 350 ↑75%
Fix ratio: 54% → 30% ↓24pp (improving)
Commits: 32 → 47 ↑47%
Deep sessions: 3 → 5 ↑2
If no prior retros exist: Skip the comparison section and append: "First retro recorded — run again next week to see trends."
After computing all metrics (including streak) and loading any prior history for comparison, save a JSON snapshot:
mkdir -p .context/retros
Determine the next sequence number for today (substitute the actual date for $(date +%Y-%m-%d)):
# Count existing retros for today to get next sequence number
today=$(TZ=America/Los_Angeles date +%Y-%m-%d)
existing=$(ls .context/retros/${today}-*.json 2>/dev/null | wc -l | tr -d ' ')
next=$((existing + 1))
# Save as .context/retros/${today}-${next}.json
Use the Write tool to save the JSON file with this schema:
{
"date": "2026-03-08",
"window": "7d",
"metrics": {
"commits": 47,
"prs_merged": 12,
"insertions": 3200,
"deletions": 800,
"net_loc": 2400,
"test_loc": 1300,
"test_ratio": 0.41,
"active_days": 6,
"sessions": 14,
"deep_sessions": 5,
"avg_session_minutes": 42,
"loc_per_session_hour": 350,
"feat_pct": 0.40,
"fix_pct": 0.30,
"peak_hour": 22
},
"version_range": ["1.16.0.0", "1.16.1.0"],
"streak_days": 47,
"tweetable": "Week of Mar 1: 47 commits, 3.2k LOC, 38% tests, 12 PRs, peak: 10pm"
}
Structure the output as:
Tweetable summary (first line, before everything else):
Week of Mar 1: 47 commits, 3.2k LOC, 38% tests, 12 PRs, peak: 10pm | Streak: 47d
(from Step 2)
(from Step 11, loaded before save — skip if first retro)
(from Steps 3-4)
Narrative interpreting what the patterns mean:
(from Steps 5-7)
Narrative covering:
(from Step 8)
Identify the 3 highest-impact things shipped in the window. For each:
Specific, actionable, anchored in actual commits. Phrase as "to get even better, you could..."
Small, practical, realistic for a very busy person. Each must be something that takes <5 minutes to adopt.
(if applicable, from Step 9)
When the user runs /retro compare (or /retro compare 14d):
--since="7 days ago"--since and --until to avoid overlap (e.g., --since="14 days ago" --until="7 days ago" for a 7d window).context/retros/ (same as a normal retro run); do not persist the prior-window metrics..context/retros/ JSON snapshot).context/retros/ JSON snapshot.origin/main for all git queries (not local main which may be stale)TZ=America/Los_Angeles)