---
name: implement-improvements
description: "Validate improvements from .turbo/improvements.md, recommend a working set tailored to what's in the backlog, and run one lane: direct fixes, investigation, or planned work. One lane per session. Use when the user asks to \"implement improvements\", \"work on improvements\", \"address improvements\", \"process improvement backlog\", \"tackle improvements\", or \"implement noted improvements\"."
---
# Implement Improvements
Validate improvements from `.turbo/improvements.md`, propose a specific working set based on the backlog's actual contents, and run one lane per session: direct, investigate, or plan. Mixing lanes in a single run tangles commits, so the skill processes exactly one lane each time. Entries outside the confirmed working set stay in the backlog for future runs.
## Task Tracking
At the start, use `TaskCreate` to create a task for each step:
1. Read the backlog
2. Validate and classify
3. Recommend, confirm, and prune stale
4. Run the chosen lane
5. Prune working-set entries from the backlog
## Step 1: Read the Backlog
Read `.turbo/improvements.md`. If the file does not exist, there are no improvements to implement; stop.
Parse all entries, extracting for each:
- **Summary** (the `###` heading)
- **Type** (`direct`, `investigate`, or `plan`; may be missing in older entries — `trivial` and `standard` are accepted as legacy aliases for `direct` and `plan`)
- **Category**
- **Where** (file paths or areas)
- **Why** (rationale)
- **Noted** (date)
## Step 2: Validate and Classify
Improvements can go stale: files get renamed, code gets refactored, issues get fixed as side effects of other work. Before routing, validate each improvement and classify any entry missing a Type.
### Validate
For each entry, verify whether the specific problem or opportunity described still exists. Do not rely on git log alone. Recent commits touching the same files do not mean the specific issue was addressed. Read the actual code and confirm:
1. **Files exist** — Do the referenced files/paths still exist? If not, the entry is stale.
2. **Problem persists** — Read the relevant code sections. Is the exact issue or opportunity described in the entry still present? Check the specific claims: if the entry says a function is uncalled, verify it has no callers; if it says error handling is missing, check whether it was added.
Classify each entry as:
- **Active** — The described problem or opportunity is confirmed present in the current code
- **Stale** — The referenced files no longer exist, or the specific issue has been resolved (cite evidence: what changed and where)
- **Unclear** — Cannot determine from code alone, needs user input
When in doubt, classify as Active. The cost of re-examining a resolved issue is low; dismissing a valid improvement is high.
### Classify type if missing
For any Active entry without a Type field, infer one on the fly. Base the classification on the code you just read during validation, not just the entry's one-line summary.
- **direct** — Clear scope and a known approach, ready to apply via `/implement`.
- **investigate** — A symptom that needs root-cause analysis first: unclear root cause, performance question, intermittent bug, "something feels off".
- **plan** — Everything else: the approach warrants writing down before implementing (multi-file refactor, test additions, feature work). Dispatched to `/turboplan`, which routes the work itself.
Pick the type without asking the user. Default to `plan` when genuinely ambiguous.
## Step 3: Recommend, Confirm, and Prune Stale
Output the backlog status as text first, grouped by type and status. Include each entry's category inline and a category tally across active entries:
```
## Improvement Backlog Status
### Active (N)
Categories: refactor (N), performance (N), testing (N), docs (N)
**Direct (N)**
- [summary] (category) — [one-line reason it's still relevant]
**Investigate (N)**
- [summary] (category) — [one-line reason it's still relevant]
**Plan (N)**
- [summary] (category) — [one-line reason it's still relevant]
### Stale (N)
- [summary] — [one-line reason it's stale]
### Unclear (N)
- [summary] — [what's ambiguous]
```
### Recommend a Working Set
Pick one specific working set tailored to the active entries. Read the entries again before recommending and weigh:
- **Cohesion** — Entries that share files, modules, or themes are stronger when batched. A cluster of related testing or reliability entries usually beats a scattered mix.
- **Decisiveness** — One investigation that unblocks several deferred entries can outweigh a larger direct batch.
- **Impact vs effort** — A reliability or correctness entry often outweighs lower-stakes cleanups even when it's a single entry.
- **Lane shape** — Each lane batches a cluster, just in different shapes. Direct groups clear-scope fixes into one `/implement` run. Investigate dispatches `/investigate` per symptom, then shares one `/implement` for the concluded fixes. Plan hands a cohesive cluster to `/turboplan`, whose complexity routing decides whether it becomes one plan or a multi-shell spec.
- **Unit of work size** — Right-size the session. Prefer the whole cohesive cluster over a narrow filter unless the filter clearly preserves session-sized work; picking 1–2 entries off a cluster of 7 wastes the slot. Route any entry that turns out to be a clear-scope direct fix to the direct lane instead.
- **Backlog state** — Heavy direct concentration calls for clearing the cluster; a long-deferred symptom often deserves the slot.
State the recommendation as: lane + concrete working set (specific entries or a category-scoped subset) + one or two sentences on why this beats the alternatives. Then list 1–3 honest alternatives, each named with the actual entry or subset (e.g., "investigate the flaky presence test", "plan lane on persist-before-send"). When only one lane has active entries, recommend that lane and skip alternatives.
### Confirm via AskUserQuestion
Use `AskUserQuestion` to confirm. Combine into the same prompt:
1. Confirm the recommended working set or pick one of the named alternatives
2. Whether to remove stale entries — include only when stale entries exist
3. Resolution for unclear items — include only when unclear entries exist
If the user confirmed stale removal, edit `.turbo/improvements.md` to delete the stale entries.
Compute the **working set** from the confirmed choice. If the working set is empty, stop.
## Step 4: Run the Chosen Lane
Read the reference file for the confirmed lane and follow its phases:
- **Direct lane** — [references/direct-lane.md](references/direct-lane.md)
- **Investigate lane** — [references/investigate-lane.md](references/investigate-lane.md)
- **Plan lane** — [references/plan-lane.md](references/plan-lane.md)
State the chosen lane before continuing with the reference file.
## Step 5: Prune Working-Set Entries from the Backlog
Edit `.turbo/improvements.md` to delete the working-set entries that the lane processed. "Processed" means:
- **Direct lane** — entries whose fixes were applied
- **Investigate lane** — entries whose concluded fixes were applied
- **Plan lane** — entries now captured in the plan or spec produced by `/turboplan`. If `/turboplan` routed to spec mode, the entries are tracked across the resulting shells; treat them as processed once the spec and shells are written.
Keep any entries the lane re-classified mid-flight (direct → investigate/plan, or investigate → plan). These stay in the backlog for a future run. Delete the file if no entries remain.
## Rules
- `.turbo/` is gitignored. Edits to `.turbo/improvements.md` are local-only and do not need to be staged or committed.
- Run exactly one lane per session. Leave other active entries in the backlog for a future run.