implement-improvements

Implement Improvements

Validate improvements from .turbo/improvements.md, propose a specific working set based on the backlog's actual contents, and run one lane per session: direct, investigate, or plan. Mixing lanes in a single run tangles commits, so the skill processes exactly one lane each time. Entries outside the confirmed working set stay in the backlog for future runs.

Task Tracking

At the start, use update_plan to track each step, restating any remaining steps of a parent workflow alongside them:

1. Read the backlog
2. Validate and classify
3. Recommend, confirm, and update the backlog
4. Run the chosen lane
5. Prune working-set entries from the backlog

Step 1: Read the Backlog

Read .turbo/improvements.md, relative to the repo root resolved with git rev-parse --show-toplevel, except inside a linked worktree — where git rev-parse --git-dir differs from --git-common-dir — in which case use the parent of the common dir. If the file does not exist, there are no improvements to implement; stop.

Parse all entries, extracting for each:

• Summary (the ### heading)
• Type (direct, investigate, or plan; may be missing in older entries — trivial and standard are accepted as legacy aliases for direct and plan)
• Category
• Where (file paths or areas)
• Why (rationale)
• Ceiling and Revisit (present when the entry records a deliberate simplification)
• Noted (date)

Step 2: Validate and Classify

Improvements drift: files get renamed, code gets refactored, issues get fixed as side effects of other work. Before routing, validate each improvement and classify any entry missing a Type.

Validate

For each entry, verify whether the specific problem or opportunity described still exists. Do not rely on git log alone. Recent commits touching the same files do not mean the specific issue was addressed. Read the actual code and confirm:

1. Files exist — Do the referenced files/paths still exist? When one was renamed or its code moved, validate the entry at the current location instead. This check marks the entry stale only when the code it names is gone.
2. Problem persists — Read the relevant code sections. Is the exact issue or opportunity described in the entry still present? Check the specific claims: if the entry says a function is uncalled, verify it has no callers; if it says error handling is missing, check whether it was added.
3. Revisit condition met — For an entry carrying a Revisit field, check whether the recorded condition now holds. The shipped simplification is present by construction, so its presence alone says nothing about whether the fuller version is worth building yet.
4. Stated scope matches the real gap — For an entry claiming missing coverage, read what existing tests already pin before accepting its scope: a test that substitutes a test double at a boundary pins the behavior on one side of it and leaves the boundary itself unpinned, so a request to cover several variants often reduces to the single boundary they share. Restate such an entry at its real scope, classify it Active, and use the restatement as its summary in Step 3.
5. Claimed consequence holds — For an entry claiming that two paths behave differently, or that a change would alter observable behavior, verify the claimed difference itself by reading what each path actually returns, exercising both when reading cannot settle it, rather than confirming only that the code it points at exists. When the claim is that nothing but the case it names reaches or relies on the named code, read that code's own tests: they surface dependents an entry written from a single path routinely omits, and turning up none leaves the claim unproven. When the named code is present but its stated consequence is false, restate the entry at the benefit it actually delivers, classify it Active, and use the restatement as its summary in Step 3; classify it Stale when no benefit survives.

Classify each entry as:

• Active — The described problem or opportunity is confirmed present in the current code
• Deferred — The entry carries a Revisit condition that does not yet hold; the shipped approach remains the right one
• Stale — The code the entry names no longer exists, the specific issue has been resolved, or the entry's premise never held (cite evidence: what changed and where, or why the claim is false)
• Unclear — Cannot determine from code alone, needs user input

When in doubt, classify as Active. The cost of re-examining a resolved issue is low; dismissing a valid improvement is high.

Classify type if missing

For any Active entry without a Type field, infer one on the fly. Base the classification on the code you just read during validation, not just the entry's one-line summary.

• direct — Clear scope and a known approach, ready to apply via $implement.
• investigate — A symptom that needs root-cause analysis first: unclear root cause, performance question, intermittent bug, "something feels off".
• plan — Everything else: the approach warrants writing down before implementing (multi-file refactor, test additions, feature work). Dispatched to $turboplan, which routes the work itself.

Pick the type without asking the user. Default to plan when genuinely ambiguous.

Step 3: Recommend, Confirm, and Update the Backlog

Output the backlog status as text first, grouped by type and status. Include each entry's category inline and a category tally across active entries:

## Improvement Backlog Status

### Active (N)
Categories: refactor (N), performance (N), testing (N), docs (N)

**Direct (N)**
- [summary] (category) — [one-line reason it's still relevant]

**Investigate (N)**
- [summary] (category) — [one-line reason it's still relevant]

**Plan (N)**
- [summary] (category) — [one-line reason it's still relevant]

### Deferred (N)
- [summary] — [the revisit condition, and what still has to happen]

### Stale (N)
- [summary] — [one-line reason it's stale]

### Unclear (N)
- [summary] — [what's ambiguous]

Recommend a Working Set

Pick one specific working set tailored to the active entries. Read the entries again before recommending and weigh:

• Cohesion — Entries that share files, modules, or themes are stronger when batched. A cluster of related testing or reliability entries usually beats a scattered mix.
• Decisiveness — One investigation that unblocks several deferred entries can outweigh a larger direct batch.
• Impact vs effort — A reliability or correctness entry often outweighs lower-stakes cleanups even when it's a single entry.
• Lane shape — Each lane batches a cluster, just in different shapes. Direct groups clear-scope fixes into one $implement run. Investigate dispatches $investigate per symptom, then shares one $implement for the concluded fixes. Plan hands a cohesive cluster to $turboplan, which routes it to a plan file.
• Unit of work size — Right-size the session. Prefer the whole cohesive cluster over a narrow filter unless the filter clearly preserves a coherent unit of work; picking 1–2 entries off a cluster of 7 wastes the slot. Route any entry that turns out to be a clear-scope direct fix to the direct lane instead.
• Backlog state — Heavy direct concentration calls for clearing the cluster; a long-deferred symptom often deserves the slot.

State the recommendation as: lane + concrete working set (specific entries or a category-scoped subset) + one or two sentences on why this beats the alternatives. Then list 1–3 honest alternatives, each named with the actual entry or subset (e.g., "investigate the flaky presence test", "plan lane on persist-before-send"). When only one lane has active entries, recommend that lane and skip alternatives.

Confirm with the User

Use request_user_input to confirm. Combine into the same prompt:

1. Confirm the recommended working set or pick one of the named alternatives
2. Whether to remove stale entries — include only when stale entries exist
3. Resolution for unclear items — include only when unclear entries exist

If the user confirmed stale removal, edit .turbo/improvements.md to delete the stale entries.

Rewrite in .turbo/improvements.md each Active or Deferred entry whose path, scope, count, or consequence Step 2 corrected, changing only the fields the correction touches. When that changes an entry's summary, update each Paired with line in its counterpart entries that names the old title.

Compute the working set from the confirmed choice. If the working set is empty, stop.

Step 4: Run the Chosen Lane

Read the reference file for the confirmed lane and follow its phases:

• Direct lane — [references/direct-lane.md](references/direct-lane.md)
• Investigate lane — [references/investigate-lane.md](references/investigate-lane.md)
• Plan lane — [references/plan-lane.md](references/plan-lane.md)

State the chosen lane before continuing with the reference file.

Step 5: Prune Working-Set Entries from the Backlog

Edit .turbo/improvements.md to delete the working-set entries that the lane processed. "Processed" means:

• Direct lane — entries whose fixes were applied
• Investigate lane — entries whose concluded fixes were applied
• Plan lane — entries now captured in the plan produced by $turboplan; treat them as processed once the plan is written.

Keep any entries the lane re-classified mid-flight (direct → investigate/plan, or investigate → plan). These stay in the backlog for a future run. Delete the file if no entries remain.

When a processed entry carries a Paired with line, drop that reference from each counterpart entry it names, so no backlog is left pointing at an entry that no longer exists.

Rules

• .turbo/ is gitignored. Edits to .turbo/improvements.md are local-only and do not need to be staged or committed.
• Run exactly one lane per session. Leave other active entries in the backlog for a future run.