Friction Log To Rules

What it does

Most retrospectives produce observations and no change, because an observation is not actionable and a rule is. This skill converts each friction point into a rule with a trigger, an action and a place it lives, and discards the ones that cannot be written that way, because a rule nobody can apply is noise in the rule set.

When to use it

• retrospective
• this keeps happening
• write up what went wrong
• friction log
• turn lessons into rules

What it needs from you

• events: what went wrong, in the order it happened
• cost: what each one cost in time, money or trust
• existing: the rules that already exist

How it works

1. Write each friction point as an event, not as a judgment. What happened, what was expected, what it cost.
2. Find the cause one level below the event. The event is that a check passed wrongly; the cause is that the check could not fail.
3. Write the rule with three parts: when this situation arises, do this, and here is why. A rule without the why is discarded the first time it is inconvenient.
4. Discard any friction point that cannot be written as a rule. Some things are bad luck and adding them to a rule set dilutes the rules that matter.
5. Check against the existing rules. A rule that already exists means the failure was not knowing it, which is a placement problem rather than a rule problem, and the fix is different.
6. Say where each rule lives so it is read at the moment it applies, not filed where it will never be seen again.
7. Keep the set small. A rule set nobody can hold in their head is not applied.

What you get back

The event list with costs, the causes, the new rules with trigger, action and reason, the discarded points with why, the duplicates found, and the placement per rule.

The quality bar

• Every rule has a trigger, an action and a reason
• Causes are stated one level below the event
• Friction points that cannot become rules are discarded explicitly
• Duplicate rules are identified as a placement problem
• Each rule has a stated home

Where it runs

• Claude Code
• Codex CLI
• Cursor
• MCP-compatible agents