Automated summary
Closes the strategic sprint loop by scoring an executed decision against pre-committed success and kill criteria and revisiting preserved dissent.
Strengths
- Scores outcomes against success and kill criteria committed before the decision, reducing retroactive justification
- Revisits preserved dissent and original assumptions with explicit yes/no/partial scoring
- Outputs a structured post-mortem record with forward actions and routing to follow-up commands
- Builds calibration over time through 90-day checkpoints and quarterly reviews
Limitations
- Requires prior decision and execution artifacts plus actual outcome data supplied by the user
- Value is capped by how well the original success and kill criteria were defined
- Tied to the cs command chain, so it is less useful as a standalone skill
Use it when an executed decision hits its 90-day checkpoint, a kill criterion triggers, or a quarterly review of past decisions is due.
Avoid it when no pre-committed criteria or decision record exists, or while the decision is still being executed.
Security analysis
SafeThis is a pure instructional prompt/markdown template for running a decision post-mortem. It declares no tools and contains no executable commands, network calls, file deletions, or credential handling. The only filesystem reference is a documented output path (~/.claude/postmortems/) that the agent's own tooling would write to, which is benign and expected for a note-taking workflow. No prompt-injection or obfuscation attempts were observed.
No concerns found
How this analysis is madeExamples
/cs:post-mortem decisions/2025-03-pricing-change.md — run the 90-day review against the success and kill criteria we committed to before launch.Score last quarter's enterprise tier launch against its original metrics and revisit the dissent preserved from the boardroom memo.Run a post-mortem on all decisions executed this quarter and flag any kill criteria that were triggered.name: "post-mortem" description: "/cs:post-mortem <decision> — Honest retrospective on an executed decision, scored against original assumptions and dissent. Closes the strategic sprint loop. Use when a decision hits its 90-day review checkpoint or its kill criteria trigger — e.g. scoring last quarter's pricing change against its pre-committed success metrics."
/cs:post-mortem — Honest Retrospective
Command: /cs:post-mortem <decision-path>
Closes the strategic sprint loop. Scores a decision against the success and kill criteria written before the decision (not retro-fitted) and revisits the preserved dissent. This is the rigor that compounds over time.
Pipeline Position
/cs:office-hours → /cs:brief → /cs:boardroom → /cs:decide → /cs:execute → /cs:post-mortem
↑ you are here
When to Run
- At the 90-day checkpoint (auto-scheduled by
/cs:decide) - When a kill criterion triggers
- After a major decision is reversed
- Quarterly on all decisions of the past quarter
Inputs
- The decision record (output of
/cs:decide) - The execution plan (output of
/cs:execute) - Actual outcomes (metrics, events, customer signals)
Output: Post-Mortem Record
Saved to ~/.claude/postmortems/YYYY-MM-DD-<slug>.md:
# Post-Mortem: <decision title>
**Decision date:** YYYY-MM-DD
**Post-mortem date:** YYYY-MM-DD
**Status:** WIN / PARTIAL / LOSS / MIXED
## Outcome Scoring (against pre-committed criteria)
| Success Criterion | Threshold | Actual | Met? |
|---|---|---|---|
| <metric 1> | <threshold> | <actual> | ✅ / ❌ |
| <metric 2> | <threshold> | <actual> | ✅ / ❌ |
| Kill Criterion | Threshold | Actual | Triggered? |
|---|---|---|---|
| <metric> | <threshold> | <actual> | ✅ / ❌ |
**Overall:** WIN / PARTIAL / LOSS / MIXED
## What We Got Right
- <factor 1>
- <factor 2>
## What We Got Wrong
- <factor 1>
- <factor 2>
## Preserved Dissent — Revisited
[Original dissent from the boardroom memo, scored:]
- **<dissenter>:** <original concern>
- **Did it materialize?** YES / NO / PARTIAL
- **Cost if YES:** <quantified impact>
- **Lesson:** <one sentence>
## Assumption Audit
[Original brief's assumptions, scored:]
- **Assumption 1:** <text>
- **Held?** YES / NO / PARTIAL
- **Why:** <explanation>
## Process Lessons
- **Phase 2 isolation worked?** YES / NO
- **Devil's advocate concerns played out?** YES / NO / PARTIAL
- **Cadence was right?** YES / TOO LOOSE / TOO TIGHT
## Forward Actions
- [ ] <change to operating system or routing logic>
- [ ] <new decision to make based on this learning>
- [ ] <update company-context.md>
## Status
- WIN → archive, log lesson
- LOSS → schedule follow-up boardroom: `/cs:brief` for the next call
Why Pre-Committed Criteria Matter
The biggest temptation in post-mortems is retroactive justification: "we always knew X, that's why we did Y." Pre-committed criteria, signed at /cs:decide time, eliminate that move. The numbers either matched or they didn't.
Why Revisit Dissent
The dissent column from /cs:boardroom is the single most useful piece of organizational memory. Most of the time, the dissenter was directionally right. Revisiting and scoring it builds calibration over years.
Routing
/cs:brief— if the post-mortem surfaces a new decision/cs:freeze— if the post-mortem reveals a process gap that needs cooldown enforcement- Updates to company-context.md via
cs-onboard
Related
- Skill:
decision-logger - Agent:
cs-chief-of-staff - Sibling:
/em:postmortem— adversarial single-decision post-mortem
Version: 1.0.0
From the file to a first result
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Claude Code
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