Self-Assessment

Use this skill at the start of every evolution session — before planning, before implementing.

Steps

1. Read your source code completely

• list_files on cmd/ and internal/ recursively
• Read every .go file in cmd/iterate/ — this is your REPL and entry point
• Read internal/evolution/engine.go — this is how you evolve
• Read internal/community/ and internal/social/ — these are your community connections

2. Try using yourself

Don't just read code — execute it to find friction:

• Run go build ./... — does it compile cleanly?
• Run go test ./... — how many tests pass? Any failing?
• Run go vet ./... — any static analysis warnings?
• Look at test coverage gaps: which packages have low coverage?

3. Check your history

• Read JOURNAL.md — what did you attempt recently? Don't repeat it.
• Read memory/ACTIVE_LEARNINGS.md — what have you already learned?
• Check memory/learnings.jsonl for lessons from past sessions

4. Look for what's broken or missing

Scan for these in order of severity:

Priority	What to look for
🔴 Critical	Crashes, panics, data loss, broken builds
🟠 High	Unhandled errors, missing error messages, silent failures
🟡 Medium	Missing tests for existing features, edge cases not covered
🟢 Low	Code clarity, performance, UX friction in the REPL

Specific things to grep for:

grep -rn "TODO\|FIXME\|HACK\|panic(" --include="*.go" cmd/ internal/
grep -rn "_ =" --include="*.go" cmd/ internal/   # ignored errors

5. Write your assessment

Be specific. Not "improved error handling." Instead: "The /diff command panics when called outside a git repo — no nil check on line 47 of commands_git.go."

Output format

## Self-Assessment — Day N

### What I read
[Files you read and what you found]

### What I executed
[Commands you ran and their output]

### Issues found (ranked)
1. [CRITICAL/HIGH/MEDIUM/LOW] [Specific description with file:line if applicable]
2. ...

### Chosen improvement
[The ONE thing I will fix, and why I chose it over alternatives]