maestro-improve
Use when a Lead assigns improvement work on one target to a Peer. The target is the only parameter; a separate Peer challenges the returned candidate before acceptance.
A correction that stays in a transcript is spent when that session ends. The lesson record is what survives, and doctrine is the only thing a future session actually reads. This skill is the one place the two are joined: it turns filed corrections into the smallest edit that would have prevented them.
The parameter
The target names the doctrine a lesson corrects: a recipe section, the SLP
Workspace Pack in src/plugins/resources/SLP.md, a Hub template, a
skills/maestro-* file, or a repository's Workspace Protocol. Where each one
lives, and what an edit to it costs, is in
references/targets.md.
The loop
shmaestro lesson list --project <project> # pending only, by design maestro lesson show <id> # the gap, the expectation, the why
- Group the pending lessons by target. Two lessons on one rule are one edit, not two, and the second one is usually what tells you which reading of the rule was ambiguous.
- Per group, propose the smallest edit that would have prevented what happened. Doctrine is read under load, so a sentence that removes an ambiguity beats a paragraph that adds a procedure. If the existing text already says it, the lesson is a rejection, not an edit.
- One commit per target group, on a branch, with the evidence ids of every lesson in the group in the message. The ids are how a later reader gets from the rule back to the incident that shaped it.
- Mark each lesson processed by pointing at that commit:
shmaestro lesson process <id> --commit <sha>
The improver never deletes a lesson and never edits one. Processing is a pointer, so the record of what was corrected stays readable after the doctrine it corrected has changed again.
Rejecting a lesson
A lesson can be wrong: the rule already covers it, the correction misread it, or two lessons disagree and only one survives. Answer it where it lives and mark it processed in the same command:
shmaestro lesson process <id> --answer "<why this produced no edit>"
The answer is for whoever filed it. "Out of scope" is not an answer; name the text that already covers it, or the reading that was wrong.
The replay gate
Doctrine has golden scenarios: a script of maestro commands and the transcript
it produced. In this repository they are tests/scenarios/<name>.script and
<name>.golden, replayed by bun test tests/scenario-golden.test.ts.
Run the replay after every edit. An edit is accepted only when it still matches
the golden set, or matches the change a lesson explicitly expected. A replay
that drifts in a way no lesson asked for is a regression in the doctrine, not an
improvement, and it goes back before the work return. When a lesson did ask for the
change, re-record with MAESTRO_GOLDEN_UPDATE=1 bun test tests/scenario-golden.test.ts and put the new golden in the same commit, so the
diff shows the behaviour that changed next to the sentence that changed it.
A doctrine edit no scenario covers is an edit nothing can falsify: add the scenario in the same commit rather than leaving the rule unwatched.
Filing new lessons
Reading a pile of corrections is the best moment to notice one nobody filed.
File it (maestro lesson file) rather than folding it silently into an edit:
the next improver run needs the same evidence trail this one had.
Return
Return the bounded candidate through the normal SLP work operation:
shmaestro work return <work-id> "candidate: <branch and commits>; lessons: <ids and stores>; proof: <replay>; residual risk: independent challenge pending"
Name every lesson processed, answered, or left pending in the return body. A lesson in another store is processed by that store's holder after acceptance; do not mutate it from the wrong project. The Lead assigns a separate challenge Peer, reconciles the two returns, and accepts only after the challenge and replay support the candidate. Improving doctrine and approving it alone is the loop this separation exists to break.
Red flags
| The thought | The reality |
|---|---|
| "While I am in this file I will also tidy..." | Every changed line traces to a lesson, or the challenge Peer cannot tell an edit from an opinion. |
| "These five lessons all point at the same mess; I will rewrite the section" | A rewrite loses the reading that was ambiguous. Fix the ambiguity, keep the section. |
| "This lesson is wrong, I will just leave it pending" | Pending means unread. Answer it and mark it processed, so it stops counting toward the next threshold. |
| "The scenarios changed because my edit is better" | An unrequested replay drift is a regression until a lesson says otherwise. |
| "I will land the branch since it is obviously right" | The challenge Peer and reviewer boundary are the point; a self-approved doctrine edit is one model marking its own work. |
