Overview
/silver:retro is the Silver Bullet orchestrator for turning delivery history into concrete process improvements. It synthesizes git history, CI signals, release notes, review analytics, incidents, and SB planning artifacts into an actionable retrospective report.
It never treats opinion without evidence as the workflow. Observed facts are separated from inferred causes, and every recommendation must land as a tracked work item, an accepted no-action rationale, or a documented owner outside SB.
/silver:retro maps to WF-SILVER-RETRO in the v0.48.3 APO catalog. Standard composition:
Primary artifact: .planning/RETRO.md. Incident clusters often feed retros via /silver:incident; recurring gaps filed here close the feedback loop.
When to Use
Entry trigger signals for /silver:retro:
- Post-release or post-milestone process review
- Incident cluster analysis after corrective actions are filed
- Quarterly or sprint-level engineering effectiveness review
- Recurring blockers identified across multiple delivery cycles
Not for: active production incidents (/silver:incident), single-session failure reconstruction (/silver:forensics), or technology selection (/silver:deep-research).
Catalog Composition
| Atomic flow | Command | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
AF-ORIENT | /silver:scan, /silver:context | Scope definition and evidence inventory across git, CI, releases, and SB artifacts |
AF-DOCUMENT | /silver:ensure-docs | Durable retrospective report in .planning/RETRO.md |
AF-DECIDE | /silver:deep-research (decision mode) | Prioritized recommendations with evidence-backed rationale |
Domain audit packs (incident-retro, benchmark-eval) may augment AF-ORIENT when provider/tooling performance is in scope. Action items file through /silver:add; durable knowledge captures through /silver:rem.
Atomic Flow Execution
AF-ORIENT — Define scope and gather evidence
Invoke /silver:scan or /silver:context. Determine retrospective scope: release tag range, date range, incident, milestone, or workflow archive. Gather evidence from git history, release notes, CI status, issue backlog, .planning/ artifacts, review-analytics.jsonl, and session logs.
AF-DOCUMENT — Write the retrospective report
Invoke /silver:ensure-docs. Produce .planning/RETRO.md with delivery metrics, quality trends, recurring blockers, and process gaps. Separate observed facts from inferred causes.
AF-DECIDE — Prioritize improvements
Invoke /silver:deep-research in decision mode when trade-offs need structured analysis. File actionable improvements through /silver:add; capture durable learnings through /silver:rem. Every recommendation must have a tracked outcome.
Artifacts & Exit Gate
.planning/RETRO.md must include:
- Scope and source range
- Delivery metrics from git, CI, releases, issues, and SB artifacts
- Quality trends from reviews, domain audits, incidents, and verification
- Recurring blockers and process gaps
- Action items filed through
/silver:add - Knowledge/learnings candidates for
/silver:rem
The retro passes only when every recommendation has either a tracked work item, an accepted no-action rationale, or a documented owner outside SB.
Example Invocation
Silver Bullet routes to WF-SILVER-RETRO. AF-ORIENT inventories commits, releases, and incident records in range. AF-DOCUMENT writes .planning/RETRO.md with trends and blockers. AF-DECIDE prioritizes three process changes and files them through /silver:add.