journallisted

# Journal ## What this skill is — and isn't | Skill | Question it answers | Output | |---|---|---| | `vd:ship` | "Land the branch." | Merged target, PR URL | | `vd:cook` | "Execute the plan." | Code, tests, plan status | | **`vd:journal`** | **"What just happened, why, and what should future-me know?"** | **One markdown file in `.work/journals/` (migrated) or `plans/journals/` (legacy)** | Journal **records**. It does not redesign, retest, or roll back. If writing the entry surfaces a real bug — stop, kick to `vd:fix` or `vd:cook`, then come back to journal once the fact pattern stabilises. ## Modes | Mode | Voice | Use when | |---|---|---| | _(default)_ **retro** | Calm, structured. What shipped, what was tricky, what's next. | After `vd:ship`, `vd:cook`, end of session. | | `--incident` | Brutal-honest, 2am-developer voice. Root cause without euphemism. | A failure happened — outage, data loss, broken migration, repeated test failure, security finding. | | `--quick` | 3–5 lines, no formal structure. | Drive-by note — small fix, minor decision, surprising bit of context. Pairs with either voice. | ## Hard rules 1. **Specificity beats vibe.** Every entry names at least one concrete artifact: commit SHA, PR #, file path, error string, metric. "We had perf issues" is not a journal entry. 2. **Decision, not narration.** If a choice was made, name the alternatives that lost and why. Otherwise the future reader can't reverse-engineer the call. 3. **Brutal in `--incident`, n