SKILL.md
Instinct System
One learning system, three tiers. Every signal Claude receives during work — an observed pattern, a user correction, a surprising discovery — routes to exactly one store.
Core Principles
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Three tiers, one routing decision — Instincts are unconfirmed hypotheses (
.claude/instincts.md). Corrections are user-confirmed rules (MEMORY.md). Discoveries are insights that explain the world (.claude/learning-log.md). Rules prescribe behavior; insights describe it; instincts are rules-in-waiting. Never mix the tiers — a hypothesis in MEMORY.md pollutes permanent knowledge, and a confirmed rule left as an instinct gets forgotten. -
Instincts are hypotheses, not rules — An instinct starts as a guess from a single observation and has no authority until confirmed. "One handler uses
sealed" is an instinct at 0.3; "all 12 handlers usesealed" is a rule at 0.9. Confidence (0.3–0.9) drives behavior: note at 0.3, mention at 0.5, follow at 0.7, promote at 0.9. -
A user correction is a confirmed instinct at full confidence — When the user corrects you, skip the confirmation cycle entirely. Generalize the lesson, capture it immediately in MEMORY.md with the "why", and confirm what was captured. A correction costs the user 30 seconds today and saves hours across all future sessions — losing one is the most expensive mistake this system can make.
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Project-scoped, never global — What holds in one codebase may be wrong in another. Instincts live per-project; transfers between projects go through export/import with confidence decay, never at full confidence.
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Review at session start, prune periodically — Read MEMORY.md and load instincts at 0.7+ before writing any code; scan recent log entries for the working area. Knowledge captured but never reviewed is wasted effort. Audit all three stores when they bloat — stale instincts, duplicate rules, and unreviewed logs defeat the purpose.