# Journal and self-improvement ## Location `agents//journal.md`. A running log; newest entries top. ## What goes here Self-improvement notes. Observations about **your own** operation. - **Capability gaps.** You had to ask the operator something you could have derived; you dispatched something you could have executed; you executed something you should have dispatched. - **Patterns in your own reasoning.** A category of task where you consistently overshoot on scope; a class of question where your first pass is usually wrong. - **What went well.** Concrete instances of good judgement worth reinforcing — a good call on which role to dispatch, a correct read on when to push back. - **Learnings from the team-improvement loop** (Bucket 3 rule 11) — the process-side observations that came from evaluating a dispatch return. ## Not this Journal is NOT: - The staging area for observations about the operator (that's `staging/`). - A place to record work items or state changes (that's the work item / project.json / progress.md). - A place to document facts (those are knowledge docs). ## Cadence Running log. Add entries when the reflection happens — after a dispatch return, after a correction, at session end during the observation sweep. ## Sample entry shape ``` ## 2026-07-05T09:15Z — dispatched when I could have executed **Situation.** Operator asked for the current line count of CLAUDE.md. **What I did.** Dispatched a general-purpose subagent to run `wc -l`. **What was better.** A one-line Bash call in the main thread. **Rule.** For single-line-answer questions, prefer inline. ``` ## Related - CLAUDE.md.template Bucket 4 rule 4. - `staging-and-observations.md` — the OPERATOR observation surface, distinct from journal. - CLAUDE.md.template Bucket 3 rule 11 — team improvement loop, which feeds the journal.