Compound Documentation Skill

Manages solution documentation in docs/solutions/ for knowledge persistence across sessions.

Overview

When you solve a problem, document it so the solution can be found and reused later.

What do you want to do?

1. Document a solution → Use /compound workflow
2. Find existing solutions → See "Searching Solutions" below
3. Promote to pattern → See "Pattern Promotion" below
4. Validate schema → See "YAML Validation" below

Instrumentation

# Log usage when using this skill
./scripts/log-skill.sh "compound-docs" "manual" "$$"

Searching Solutions

# Search by keyword
grep -r "keyword" docs/solutions/

# Search by tag
grep -l "tags:.*performance" docs/solutions/**/*.md

# Search by problem type
ls docs/solutions/performance-issues/

Pattern Promotion

When an issue occurs 3+ times:

1. Search for similar solutions:

   grep -r "similar terms" docs/solutions/
   

2. Add to critical patterns:

   # Edit docs/solutions/patterns/critical-patterns.md
   

3. Format:

   ### Pattern #{N}: {Name}
   
   **Problem:** {What goes wrong}
   
   **❌ WRONG:**
   ```code
   {incorrect}
   

   ✅ CORRECT:

   {correct}
   

YAML Validation

All solutions must have valid frontmatter:

---
date: "YYYY-MM-DD"
problem_type: "{from schema.yaml}"
severity: "critical|high|medium|low"
symptoms:
  - "symptom 1"
root_cause: "{from schema.yaml}"
tags:
  - tag1
---

See docs/solutions/schema.yaml for valid enum values.

Documenting Failures & Learnings

When documenting solutions, capture the full journey:

What to Include

• ✅ Failed attempts with explanations
• ✅ Incorrect assumptions and corrections
• ✅ Key insights from mistakes
• ✅ Course corrections and why
• ✅ Time investment (helps prioritize future similar issues)

Example Pattern

## Investigation Steps

| Attempt | Hypothesis | Result |
|---------|------------|--------|
| 1. Check API logs | API might be timing out | ❌ No timeouts found |
| 2. Review database queries | N+1 query suspected | ❌ Queries were optimized |
| 3. Check cache invalidation | Cache might be stale | ✅ Found cache not clearing |

## Lessons Learned

### Mistakes Made
- **Assumption:** Assumed the API was the bottleneck
  - **Why wrong:** Didn't check cache layer first
  - **Correction:** Should always check cache before API

### Key Breakthrough
- **Insight:** Realized cache invalidation logic was only running on UPDATE, not DELETE
  - **Impact:** Led directly to the solution

[!TIP] Document the journey, not just the destination. Future readers learn from understanding WHY failed approaches didn't work.

References

• Schema: docs/solutions/schema.yaml
• Template: docs/solutions/templates/solution-template.md
• Patterns: docs/solutions/patterns/critical-patterns.md