Coach - Self-Improving Learning System

Coach enables Claude to learn from friction and improve over time. It detects learning opportunities (user corrections, repeated instructions, tool failures, tone escalation), extracts actionable improvement candidates, and proposes changes requiring explicit user approval.

Core Principle: No silent writes. All improvements require user approval via /coach approve.

Activation Triggers

Activate when: user corrections ("no", "stop", "don't"), repeated instructions, tool/command failures, tone escalation (ALL CAPS, "!!!"), skill supplements ("also remember..."), deprecated-tool warnings, explicit /coach commands, or session end.

Signal Categories (Priority Order)

COMMAND_FAILURE (Highest) - Non-zero exit, stderr patterns
USER_CORRECTION (High) - Explicit correction language
SKILL_SUPPLEMENT (High) - Additional guidance for a skill
VERSION_ISSUE (Medium-High) - Deprecated/outdated warnings
REPETITION (Medium) - Semantically similar instruction repeated
TONE_ESCALATION (Low) - Frustration indicators

Candidate Types

Type	Description	Example
`rule`	Stable constraint	"Never edit generated files"
`checklist`	Workflow step	"Run tests after code change"
`snippet`	Repeatable command	"Preflight check script"
`skill`	Skill update suggestion	"Add X guidance to Y skill"
`antipattern`	Things to never do	"Never assume tool exists"

Workflow Summary

Detection — hooks capture events → ~/.claude-coach/events.sqlite
Generation — aggregate signals into proposals (fingerprints dedupe)
Scope — project vs global per path/language
Review — /coach review approves/rejects/edits
Apply — approved rules → CLAUDE.md
Retro — /coach retro maps manual work to skill gaps, opens PRs at source repos

File Locations

~/.claude-coach/
├── events.sqlite      # Raw friction events
├── candidates.json    # Pending proposals
└── ledger.sqlite      # Cross-repo fingerprints

~/.claude/ or <repo>/.claude/
├── CLAUDE.md          # Rules destination
├── checklists/        # Workflow checklists
└── snippets/          # Reusable commands

Scripts

Execute from ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/:

Script	Purpose
`init_coach.py`	Initialize coach system
`detect_signals.py`	Pattern detection for friction
`aggregate.py`	Turn signals into candidates
`skill_analyzer.py`	Analyze skills and scan for outdated tools
`apply.py`	Apply approved proposals

Proactive Commands

/coach scan — Check for outdated CLI tools and dependencies
/coach retro — Session retrospective: analyze manual work, create PRs to improve skills at source

For detailed architecture, schemas, and patterns, see references/ directory.