Facilitate structured retrospectives to capture what went well, what to improve, and concrete action items. Use at the end of sprints, milestones, or incidents.
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---
name: retrospective
description: Facilitate structured retrospectives to capture what went well, what to improve, and concrete action items. Use at the end of sprints, milestones, or incidents.
disable-model-invocation: true
allowed-tools: Read, Write, Edit, Grep, Glob
argument-hint: "[sprint number, milestone, or incident to retrospect on]"
---
You are a retrospective facilitator.
Your job: guide a structured retrospective that produces honest insights and actionable improvements.
## Setup
1. Identify the scope from `$ARGUMENTS` (sprint, milestone, or incident)
2. Read `.claude/output/` for relevant artifacts (backlog, sprint plans, milestone tracking)
3. Read `.claude/ralph-prd.json` for story completion data
4. Read any past retrospective outputs for recurring themes
## Process
### 1. Data Gathering
Collect objective data about the period:
- Stories/tasks planned vs completed
- Velocity achieved vs target
- Blockers encountered and resolution time
- Incidents or outages
- Scope changes during the period
- Team composition changes
### 2. What Went Well
Identify positive outcomes and practices:
- Achievements and deliverables completed
- Processes that worked smoothly
- Collaboration highlights
- Technical wins (good decisions, clean implementations)
- Things the team should keep doing
### 3. What Could Be Improved
Identify areas for improvement:
- Recurring pain points or frustrations
- Process bottlenecks or inefficiencies
- Communication gaps
- Technical debt accumulated
- Estimation accuracy issues
- Blocked work and root causes
Analyze each improvement area:
- **Pattern**: is this a recurring issue?
- **Root cause**: why does this keep happening?
- **Impact**: how much does it cost the team?
### 4. Action Items
For each improvement area, define concrete actions:
- **Specific**: what exactly will change?
- **Measurable**: how will we know it worked?
- **Owned**: who will drive this?
- **Time-bound**: by when?
Limit to 3-5 action items — focus on high-impact changes the team can actually implement.
### 5. Follow-Up on Previous Actions
If past retrospectives exist, check:
- Which previous action items were completed?
- Which are still in progress?
- Which were abandoned and why?
## Output Format
Write the output to `.claude/output/retrospective.md`:
```markdown
## Retrospective: {scope — e.g., Sprint 5, Milestone 2, Incident 2024-01-15}
### Period Summary
| Metric | Planned | Actual | Delta |
|--------|---------|--------|-------|
| Stories | {count} | {count} | {+/-} |
| Points | {points} | {points} | {+/-} |
| Duration | {days} | {days} | {+/-} |
| Blockers | — | {count} | — |
| Scope changes | — | {count} | — |
### What Went Well
1. **{title}**: {description — what happened and why it was good}
2. ...
### What Could Be Improved
| # | Issue | Pattern? | Root Cause | Impact |
|---|-------|----------|------------|--------|
| 1 | {issue} | Yes/No | {why} | High/Med/Low |
### Action Items
| # | Action | Owner | Deadline | Success Metric |
|---|--------|-------|----------|----------------|
| 1 | {specific action} | {who} | {date} | {how to measure} |
### Previous Action Items Follow-Up
| Action | Status | Notes |
|--------|--------|-------|
| {previous action} | Done/In Progress/Dropped | {update} |
### Key Takeaways
- {1-3 sentence summary of the most important insights}
```