Reflect
Mine the current conversation for durable learnings, then route them into skill edits.
When to invoke
Invoke when the user says "reflect" or "/reflect". Skip when the conversation is trivial, off-topic, or already covered by an existing skill the parent followed correctly. One-offs are not learnings.
Process
1. Locate the active transcript
The parent finds its own transcript file before fanning out. The system prompt names the active workspace's agent-transcripts/ directory. Use that path. Do not glob across ~/.cursor/projects/*/. That crosses workspace boundaries and reads private chats from unrelated projects.
ls -t <agent-transcripts>/*.jsonl <agent-transcripts>/*/*.jsonl <agent-transcripts>/*/subagents/*.jsonl 2>/dev/null | head -10
Three transcript layouts: legacy flat (<id>.jsonl), current nested (<id>/<id>.jsonl), and subagent (<parent>/subagents/<child>.jsonl).
For each candidate, read the first JSONL line and check that message.content[0].text contains the conversation's opening user prompt. Take the matching path. If no path resolves, write a tight digest of the session and pass that instead.
2. Spawn three reviewers in parallel
One message, three Task calls, subagent_type: generalPurpose, with model set as below, agent mode (readonly: false). Reviewers need MCP access for context lookups (tickets, chat threads, observability traces referenced in the transcript). Readonly strips MCPs.
Each reviewer and the synthesizer name a role line in the pstack-models.mdc rule and a default. Set model to that line's value, or to the default if the rule or the line is missing. Leave model unset when the value is auto or inherit-parent. If the Task tool rejects a slug, use the default and say so. If it rejects the default, use the closest valid slug of the same family from its error message.
| Lens | Role line | Default model | Prompt template |
|---|---|---|---|
| Judgment | reflect judgment, divergent, synthesizer | claude-opus-5-5-max | references/judgment-reviewer.md |
| Tooling | reflect tooling | gpt-5.6-sol-max | references/tooling-reviewer.md |
| Divergent | reflect judgment, divergent, synthesizer | claude-opus-5-5-max | references/divergent-reviewer.md |
Pass each template verbatim, substituting the transcript path or digest where marked. Reviewers return findings in the Task response body.
3. Synthesize
One Task call, subagent_type: generalPurpose, with model from the reflect judgment, divergent, synthesizer line (default claude-opus-5-5-max), agent mode (readonly: false). The synthesizer's quality check includes spot-verifying citations, which can require MCP access. Readonly strips MCPs. Use references/synthesizer.md verbatim, with each reviewer's full output inlined where marked. The synthesizer returns a structured Accepted / Rejected / Backlog list.
4. Structural enforcement check
Sanity-check the synthesizer's Accepted list. For any item that would be enforced more reliably by a lint rule, script, metadata flag, or runtime check, move it from Accepted to Backlog. See the encode-lessons-in-structure principle skill.
5. Apply
Before applying any Accepted edit, present the synthesizer's full Accepted/Rejected/Backlog output to the user and wait for explicit approval. The user picks which subset to apply and may redirect routings. Skill changes affect every future agent in the org. Do not auto-apply.
Backlog items file to whatever devex / backlog tracker your team uses automatically. Only the Accepted list waits for approval.
For each approved Accepted item, follow the Routing field exactly:
- Trivial existing-skill edit (a one-line bullet, a tightened sentence, a stale fact corrected): parent does directly.
- Substantive existing-skill edit (a new section, a new pattern table, more than ~10 lines): hand to Cursor's built-in
create-skillskill and run its draft / test / iterate loop. tune description: <skill path>(the skill exists but didn't trigger when it should have): hand tocreate-skilland run its description-optimization loop.new skill via create-skill: <kebab-name>: hand creation tocreate-skill. Do not invent the shape ad hoc.
If your environment ships a SKILL.md validator, run it on every touched skill before declaring done. Skip this step if it doesn't.
6. Summarize for the user
Short list, no preamble:
- Edits applied:
<skill path>. What changed, one line each. - New skills created:
<skill path>. One line each (rare). - Backlog filed to the devex tracker:
<issue title>(<tags>). One line each. - Dropped: one line per rejected finding + reason from the synthesizer.