Navigator Profile Skill
Manage user preferences for bilateral modeling - enabling Claude to understand and adapt to your working style, technical preferences, and past corrections.
Why This Exists (Theory of Mind)
Based on Riedl & Weidmann 2025 research on Human-AI Synergy:
- Theory of Mind (ToM) is the key differentiator in human-AI collaboration success
- Users with higher ToM achieve 23-29% performance boost
- Bilateral modeling completes the ToM loop: Claude models you, you model Claude
This skill enables Claude to:
- Remember your preferences across sessions
- Learn from corrections without you repeating them
- Adapt communication style to your level
- Build a persistent mental model of YOU
When to Invoke
Auto-invoke when:
- User says "save my preferences", "remember I like..."
- User says "update my profile", "change my preference for..."
- After detecting a correction pattern (auto-learn mode)
- User says "show my profile", "what do you know about me?"
DO NOT invoke if:
- User is creating a context marker (use nav-marker)
- User wants session-specific preferences only
- User explicitly says "just for this session"
Profile Location
.agent/.user-profile.json (git-ignored, session-persistent)
Execution Steps
Step 1: Determine Action
SHOW (viewing profile):
User: "Show my profile", "What do you remember about me?" → Display current profile
UPDATE (explicit preference):
User: "Remember I prefer functional style", "Save that I like concise explanations" → Update specific preference
LEARN (auto-detect correction):
[Internal trigger after correction detected] → Extract and save correction pattern
RESET (clear profile):
User: "Reset my profile", "Clear my preferences" → Confirm and delete profile
Step 2: Load or Initialize Profile
Check if profile exists:
bashif [ -f ".agent/.user-profile.json" ]; then echo "Profile exists" else echo "No profile found, will create new" fi
Initialize new profile (if not exists):
json{ "version": "1.0", "created": "{YYYY-MM-DD}", "last_updated": "{YYYY-MM-DD}", "preferences": { "communication": { "verbosity": "balanced", "confirmation_threshold": "high-stakes", "explanation_style": "examples" }, "technical": { "preferred_frameworks": [], "code_style": "mixed", "testing_preference": "tdd" }, "workflow": { "autonomous_commits": true, "auto_compact_threshold": 80, "marker_before_risky": true } }, "corrections": [], "goals": [] }
Step 3A: Show Profile (If SHOW Action)
Display current profile:
Your Navigator Profile ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Communication Preferences: - Verbosity: {verbosity} - Confirmation: {confirmation_threshold} (when to verify understanding) - Explanations: {explanation_style} Technical Preferences: - Preferred frameworks: {frameworks or "none set"} - Code style: {code_style} - Testing: {testing_preference} Workflow Preferences: - Autonomous commits: {autonomous_commits} - Auto-compact at: {auto_compact_threshold}% context - Markers before risky changes: {marker_before_risky} Learned Corrections ({count}): {recent_corrections_list} Active Goals ({count}): {active_goals_list} ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Last updated: {last_updated}
Step 3B: Update Profile (If UPDATE Action)
Parse preference from user input:
User: "Remember I prefer functional style" → Category: technical → Field: code_style → Value: functional User: "I like concise explanations" → Category: communication → Field: verbosity → Value: concise
Map common expressions to profile fields:
| User Says | Category | Field | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| "concise", "brief", "short" | communication | verbosity | concise |
| "detailed", "thorough" | communication | verbosity | detailed |
| "always confirm" | communication | confirmation_threshold | always |
| "skip confirmations" | communication | confirmation_threshold | never |
| "functional style" | technical | code_style | functional |
| "OOP style" | technical | code_style | oop |
| "prefer React" | technical | preferred_frameworks | [append "react"] |
| "prefer Express" | technical | preferred_frameworks | [append "express"] |
Update and save:
json// Update specific field profile.preferences[category][field] = value; profile.last_updated = "{YYYY-MM-DD}"; // Write to file Write(".agent/.user-profile.json", JSON.stringify(profile, null, 2));
Confirm update:
✅ Profile updated! Changed: {category}.{field} From: {old_value} To: {new_value} This will affect future sessions.
Step 3C: Auto-Learn Correction (If LEARN Action) [AUTO-TRIGGER]
IMPORTANT: This action triggers automatically - no explicit skill invocation needed.
When to detect corrections (monitor ALL conversations):
- User says "No, I meant...", "Actually...", "Not X, use Y"
- User repeats a correction they gave before
- User shows frustration at repeated mistake
Trigger patterns to watch for:
"No, ..." → Direct correction "I said ..." → Repeated instruction "Actually, ..." → Clarification "Not X, Y" → Substitution "Always use ..." → Rule establishment "Never do ..." → Anti-pattern "I prefer ..." → Preference
When detected:
User: "No, I meant plural /users not /user" → Correction detected: REST naming convention preference → Auto-save to profile (silent)
Extract correction pattern:
pythoncorrection = { "date": "{YYYY-MM-DD}", "context": "{what we were doing}", "original": "{what I said/generated}", "corrected_to": "{what user wanted}", "pattern": "{generalized rule}", "confidence": "high|medium|low" }
Add to corrections list:
jsonprofile.corrections.push(correction); // Keep last 20 corrections (rolling window) if (profile.corrections.length > 20) { profile.corrections.shift(); }
Silently acknowledge (don't interrupt flow):
[Internal log: Correction saved to profile]
Sync to Knowledge Graph (if enabled in config):
bashPLUGIN_DIR="${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT:-$HOME/.claude/plugins/cache/navigator-marketplace/navigator}" [ -d "$PLUGIN_DIR" ] || PLUGIN_DIR="$HOME/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/navigator-marketplace" # Check if knowledge graph integration is enabled if [ -f ".agent/knowledge/graph.json" ]; then # Convert correction to memory python3 "$PLUGIN_DIR/skills/nav-graph/functions/correction_to_memory.py" \ --action convert-one \ --correction-json '{"pattern": "{pattern}", "context": "{context}", "confidence": "{confidence}"}' \ --graph-path .agent/knowledge/graph.json # [Internal log: Correction synced to knowledge graph as memory] fi
This creates a pitfall/pattern/learning memory in the knowledge graph, making the correction available via "What do we know about X?" queries.
Periodically surface learnings (every 5 corrections):
📚 I've learned from your corrections: - REST endpoints should use plural nouns - You prefer functional components over class components - TypeScript strict mode is required These will be applied in future sessions.
Step 3D: Reset Profile (If RESET Action)
Confirm before delete:
⚠️ This will delete your Navigator profile: - {X} saved preferences - {Y} learned corrections - {Z} active goals This cannot be undone. Delete profile? [y/N]
If confirmed:
bashrm .agent/.user-profile.json
Confirm deletion:
✅ Profile deleted Future sessions will start fresh. To rebuild, use "Save my preferences" as you work.
Step 4: Update Goals (Optional)
If user mentions a goal:
User: "I'm working on the OAuth feature" → Add/update goal in profile
Goal structure:
json{ "name": "oauth-feature", "started": "{YYYY-MM-DD}", "context": "OAuth implementation for user login", "status": "in-progress", "last_mentioned": "{YYYY-MM-DD}" }
Goal cleanup (auto-archive goals not mentioned in 7 days):
json// Move to completed if not mentioned recently goals.forEach(goal => { if (daysSince(goal.last_mentioned) > 7) { goal.status = "completed-or-abandoned"; } });
Step 5: Confirm Action
For explicit actions (SHOW, UPDATE, RESET): Show confirmation message.
For auto-learn (LEARN): Silent acknowledgment, periodic summaries.
Profile Schema Reference
json{ "version": "1.0", "created": "2025-12-09", "last_updated": "2025-12-09", "preferences": { "communication": { "verbosity": "concise|balanced|detailed", "confirmation_threshold": "always|high-stakes|never", "explanation_style": "examples|theory|both" }, "technical": { "preferred_frameworks": ["react", "express", "etc"], "code_style": "functional|oop|mixed", "testing_preference": "tdd|bdd|manual" }, "workflow": { "autonomous_commits": true|false, "auto_compact_threshold": 70-90, "marker_before_risky": true|false } }, "corrections": [ { "date": "2025-12-09", "context": "creating API endpoint", "original": "Created /user endpoint", "corrected_to": "Should be /users (plural)", "pattern": "REST endpoints use plural nouns", "confidence": "high" } ], "goals": [ { "name": "oauth-feature", "started": "2025-12-07", "context": "OAuth implementation for user login", "status": "in-progress", "last_mentioned": "2025-12-09" } ] }
Integration with Other Skills
nav-start (Session Start)
Loads profile automatically:
markdown### Step 3.5: Load User Profile If `.agent/.user-profile.json` exists: - Load preferences into context - Apply confirmation threshold - Note active goals - Show: "Loaded preferences from profile"
nav-marker (Context Markers)
Preserves profile reference:
markdown## Profile State - Preferences loaded: ✅ - Corrections this session: {count} - Goals active: {goal_names}
All ToM Checkpoints
Respect profile settings:
markdown// Before showing verification checkpoint if (profile.preferences.communication.confirmation_threshold === "never") { // Skip verification } else if (profile.preferences.communication.confirmation_threshold === "high-stakes") { // Only verify for complex operations }
Auto-Learn Triggers
Correction patterns to detect:
| User Pattern | Extracted Learning |
|---|---|
| "No, I meant..." | Direct correction |
| "Actually, prefer..." | Preference correction |
| "Not X, use Y" | Substitution correction |
| "Always do X" | Rule establishment |
| "Never do Y" | Anti-pattern |
| "I like when you..." | Positive preference |
| "Stop doing X" | Negative preference |
Confidence scoring:
- High: Explicit correction with reasoning
- Medium: Correction without explanation
- Low: Implicit preference from behavior
Privacy & Data
Profile is:
- Git-ignored (
.agent/.user-profile.json) - Local only (not synced)
- User-controlled (can delete anytime)
- Session-persistent (survives context clears)
Profile does NOT store:
- Code snippets
- File contents
- Conversation history
- Sensitive data
Success Criteria
Profile management succeeds when:
- Profile loads at session start
- Preferences affect behavior (verbosity, confirmations)
- Corrections persist across sessions
- Auto-learn captures patterns silently
- Goals track user's current focus
- Reset cleanly removes all data
Best Practices
Good profile usage:
- "Remember I prefer concise explanations" (clear preference)
- "Save that I use functional components" (specific)
- "Show my profile" (verify what's stored)
Avoid:
- Storing sensitive information
- Over-correcting (let auto-learn work)
- Resetting frequently (defeats purpose)
This skill enables bilateral Theory of Mind - Claude understanding you as well as you understanding Claude 🧠

