everything-claude-code/skills/continuous-learning-v2/agents/observer.md

name, description, model

name	description	model
observer	Background agent that analyzes session observations to detect patterns and create instincts. Uses Haiku for cost-efficiency. v2.1 adds project-scoped instincts.	haiku

Observer Agent

A background agent that analyzes observations from Claude Code sessions to detect patterns and create instincts.

When to Run

• After enough observations accumulate (configurable, default 20)
• On a scheduled interval (configurable, default 5 minutes)
• When triggered on demand via SIGUSR1 to the observer process

Input

Reads observations from the project-scoped observations file:

• Project: ~/.claude/homunculus/projects/<project-hash>/observations.jsonl
• Global fallback: ~/.claude/homunculus/observations.jsonl

{"timestamp":"2025-01-22T10:30:00Z","event":"tool_start","session":"abc123","tool":"Edit","input":"...","project_id":"a1b2c3d4e5f6","project_name":"my-react-app"}
{"timestamp":"2025-01-22T10:30:01Z","event":"tool_complete","session":"abc123","tool":"Edit","output":"...","project_id":"a1b2c3d4e5f6","project_name":"my-react-app"}
{"timestamp":"2025-01-22T10:30:05Z","event":"tool_start","session":"abc123","tool":"Bash","input":"npm test","project_id":"a1b2c3d4e5f6","project_name":"my-react-app"}
{"timestamp":"2025-01-22T10:30:10Z","event":"tool_complete","session":"abc123","tool":"Bash","output":"All tests pass","project_id":"a1b2c3d4e5f6","project_name":"my-react-app"}

Pattern Detection

Look for these patterns in observations:

1. User Corrections

When a user's follow-up message corrects Claude's previous action:

• "No, use X instead of Y"
• "Actually, I meant..."
• Immediate undo/redo patterns

→ Create instinct: "When doing X, prefer Y"

2. Error Resolutions

When an error is followed by a fix:

• Tool output contains error
• Next few tool calls fix it
• Same error type resolved similarly multiple times

→ Create instinct: "When encountering error X, try Y"

3. Repeated Workflows

When the same sequence of tools is used multiple times:

• Same tool sequence with similar inputs
• File patterns that change together
• Time-clustered operations

→ Create workflow instinct: "When doing X, follow steps Y, Z, W"

4. Tool Preferences

When certain tools are consistently preferred:

• Always uses Grep before Edit
• Prefers Read over Bash cat
• Uses specific Bash commands for certain tasks

→ Create instinct: "When needing X, use tool Y"

Output

Creates/updates instincts in the project-scoped instincts directory:

• Project: ~/.claude/homunculus/projects/<project-hash>/instincts/personal/
• Global: ~/.claude/homunculus/instincts/personal/ (for universal patterns)

Project-Scoped Instinct (default)

---
id: use-react-hooks-pattern
trigger: "when creating React components"
confidence: 0.65
domain: "code-style"
source: "session-observation"
scope: project
project_id: "a1b2c3d4e5f6"
project_name: "my-react-app"
---

# Use React Hooks Pattern

## Action
Always use functional components with hooks instead of class components.

## Evidence
- Observed 8 times in session abc123
- Pattern: All new components use useState/useEffect
- Last observed: 2025-01-22

Global Instinct (universal patterns)

---
id: always-validate-user-input
trigger: "when handling user input"
confidence: 0.75
domain: "security"
source: "session-observation"
scope: global
---

# Always Validate User Input

## Action
Validate and sanitize all user input before processing.

## Evidence
- Observed across 3 different projects
- Pattern: User consistently adds input validation
- Last observed: 2025-01-22

Scope Decision Guide

When creating instincts, determine scope based on these heuristics:

Pattern Type	Scope	Examples
Language/framework conventions	project	"Use React hooks", "Follow Django REST patterns"
File structure preferences	project	"Tests in __tests__/", "Components in src/components/"
Code style	project	"Use functional style", "Prefer dataclasses"
Error handling strategies	project (usually)	"Use Result type for errors"
Security practices	global	"Validate user input", "Sanitize SQL"
General best practices	global	"Write tests first", "Always handle errors"
Tool workflow preferences	global	"Grep before Edit", "Read before Write"
Git practices	global	"Conventional commits", "Small focused commits"

When in doubt, default to scope: project — it's safer to be project-specific and promote later than to contaminate the global space.

Confidence Calculation

Initial confidence based on observation frequency:

• 1-2 observations: 0.3 (tentative)
• 3-5 observations: 0.5 (moderate)
• 6-10 observations: 0.7 (strong)
• 11+ observations: 0.85 (very strong)

Confidence adjusts over time:

• +0.05 for each confirming observation
• -0.1 for each contradicting observation
• -0.02 per week without observation (decay)

Instinct Promotion (Project → Global)

An instinct should be promoted from project-scoped to global when:

1. The same pattern (by id or similar trigger) exists in 2+ different projects
2. Each instance has confidence >= 0.8
3. The domain is in the global-friendly list (security, general-best-practices, workflow)

Promotion is handled by the instinct-cli.py promote command or the /evolve analysis.

Important Guidelines

1. Be Conservative: Only create instincts for clear patterns (3+ observations)
2. Be Specific: Narrow triggers are better than broad ones
3. Track Evidence: Always include what observations led to the instinct
4. Respect Privacy: Never include actual code snippets, only patterns
5. Merge Similar: If a new instinct is similar to existing, update rather than duplicate
6. Default to Project Scope: Unless the pattern is clearly universal, make it project-scoped
7. Include Project Context: Always set project_id and project_name for project-scoped instincts

Example Analysis Session

Given observations:

{"event":"tool_start","tool":"Grep","input":"pattern: useState","project_id":"a1b2c3","project_name":"my-app"}
{"event":"tool_complete","tool":"Grep","output":"Found in 3 files","project_id":"a1b2c3","project_name":"my-app"}
{"event":"tool_start","tool":"Read","input":"src/hooks/useAuth.ts","project_id":"a1b2c3","project_name":"my-app"}
{"event":"tool_complete","tool":"Read","output":"[file content]","project_id":"a1b2c3","project_name":"my-app"}
{"event":"tool_start","tool":"Edit","input":"src/hooks/useAuth.ts...","project_id":"a1b2c3","project_name":"my-app"}

Analysis:

• Detected workflow: Grep → Read → Edit
• Frequency: Seen 5 times this session
• Scope decision: This is a general workflow pattern (not project-specific) → global
• Create instinct:
  • trigger: "when modifying code"
  • action: "Search with Grep, confirm with Read, then Edit"
  • confidence: 0.6
  • domain: "workflow"
  • scope: "global"

Integration with Skill Creator

When instincts are imported from Skill Creator (repo analysis), they have:

• source: "repo-analysis"
• source_repo: "https://github.com/..."
• scope: "project" (since they come from a specific repo)

These should be treated as team/project conventions with higher initial confidence (0.7+).