From 89a3312b51baa3f74211c27414583b9add1b802f Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Craig Jennings <c@cjennings.net>
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2026 14:40:34 -0500
Subject: feat: clean-room synthesis — brainstorm, memorize, root-cause-trace,
 five-whys
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Four new skills synthesized from patterns in NeoLabHQ/context-engineering-kit
(GPL-3.0). Clean-room approach: extracted rubrics from the originals
(triggers, phases, hard cases, footguns, novel patterns), then wrote from
scratch without referencing their prose. Ideas and methods aren't copyrightable;
wording is. These skills are independent works.

  brainstorm          Turn a vague idea into a validated design doc. Three
                      phases: one-question-at-a-time dialogue, six-approach
                      exploration (three conventional + three diverse tail
                      samples for anti-convergence), chunked design
                      presentation with per-chunk validation. Output:
                      docs/design/<topic>.md. Hands off to arch-decide /
                      arch-design / implementation.

  memorize            Curate session insights into project CLAUDE.md under a
                      dedicated "## Memorized Insights" section. Grow-and-
                      refine per ACE (arXiv:2510.04618): atomic, evidence-
                      backed, non-redundant bullets. Args: --dry-run, --max,
                      --target, --section, --source. Flags cross-project
                      patterns for promotion to ~/code/rulesets/claude-rules/.
                      Clearly delineates from auto-memory (private) and
                      formal rules (stable policy).

  root-cause-trace    Backward-walk technique for debugging. Observe symptom
                      → identify immediate cause → walk up the call chain →
                      find original trigger → fix at source + defense-in-
                      depth at each intermediate layer. Instrumentation
                      guidance (stack capture before the dangerous op, not
                      after; stderr not framework logger in tests); test-
                      pollution bisection. Companion to /debug — /debug is
                      broader; this is specifically the backward walk.

  five-whys           Iterative why-questioning from symptom to process/
                      decision root cause. Five is a convention, not a
                      quota — stop when a cause, if eliminated, would prevent
                      every symptom in the chain. Handles branching (multiple
                      contributing causes). Validates chains by walking back
                      from root to symptom. Refuses to terminate at "human
                      error" or "not enough budget" — those have deeper
                      whys. Companion to root-cause-trace (that's for code
                      execution; this is for process).

Makefile SKILLS extended. make install symlinks all four into
~/.claude/skills/ alongside existing skills. Lint clean.
---
 Makefile | 3 ++-
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

(limited to 'Makefile')

diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 5a27392..5f10cc0 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -4,7 +4,8 @@ SHELL := /bin/bash
 SKILLS_DIR := $(HOME)/.claude/skills
 RULES_DIR  := $(HOME)/.claude/rules
 SKILLS     := c4-analyze c4-diagram debug add-tests respond-to-review review-pr fix-issue security-check \
-              arch-design arch-decide arch-document arch-evaluate
+              arch-design arch-decide arch-document arch-evaluate \
+              brainstorm memorize root-cause-trace five-whys
 RULES      := $(wildcard claude-rules/*.md)
 LANGUAGES  := $(notdir $(wildcard languages/*))
 
-- 
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