coalesce-labs/compound-estimate

Compound Estimate — Closing Ritual at PR Merge

Write a compound-log entry for a just-shipped ticket. This is the Phase 1 exit gate for AI-native estimation: without this closer, claude-code-otel cost/wall-time signals never feed future estimates and the calibration loop stays open.

The skill delegates all mechanical work to plugins/dev/scripts/compound-log.sh. Your job is to collect the three human-authored inputs (estimate_actual, what_worked, what_surprised_me) and invoke the helper.

Invocation

/compound-estimate <TICKET-ID>

Inputs:

• <TICKET-ID> — required. Linear ticket key (e.g. CTL-159). If omitted, detect from the current branch name (gh pr view --json headRefName → parse ticket prefix).

Output

Appends an entry to thoughts/shared/retros/estimate/YYYY-WW-compound-log.md, creating the weekly file with a header if it doesn't exist. Weeks are ISO-8601 and derived from the PR's mergedAt (not today's date).

Process

1. Resolve the ticket

If the user passed a ticket ID, use it. Otherwise:

BRANCH=$(git branch --show-current)
# Extract ticket prefix from .catalyst/config.json
TICKET_PREFIX=$(jq -r '.catalyst.project.ticketPrefix // "PROJ"' .catalyst/config.json)
TICKET_ID=$(echo "$BRANCH" | grep -oE "${TICKET_PREFIX}-[0-9]+" | head -1)

If no ticket can be resolved, ask the user explicitly. Do not guess.

2. Verify the PR is merged

The helper will fail loud if mergedAt is missing, but give the user a clearer error up front:

PR_JSON=$(gh pr view --json number,state,mergedAt 2>/dev/null)
STATE=$(echo "$PR_JSON" | jq -r '.state')
if [ "$STATE" != "MERGED" ]; then
  echo "error: PR on current branch is not merged (state=$STATE). Run /compound-estimate after the PR merges."
  exit 1
fi

3. Collect the three human-authored inputs

Prompt the user interactively (one at a time). Keep the prompts short and concrete; the estimate re-scoring is the calibration signal, so do not skip it.

• estimate_actual — re-score the ticket on the CTL-746 T-shirt → points scale (XS=1, S=3, M=5, L=8, XL=13 — the same Fibonacci mirror phase-triage writes to Issue.estimate). Ask: "After shipping, what T-shirt would you set this ticket to? (XS/S/M/L/XL or integer 1/3/5/8/13)". Off-scale integers are accepted by the helper but the corpus-refresh override ignores them — stick to the scale.
• what_worked — ask: "What worked? (one or two sentences)"
• what_surprised_me — ask: "What surprised you? (one or two sentences — this is the highest-signal calibration input)"

If the user answers with a T-shirt letter, convert to the integer before passing to the helper.

4. Invoke the helper

plugins/dev/scripts/compound-log.sh write "$TICKET_ID" \
  --estimate-actual "$EST_ACTUAL_INT" \
  --what-worked "$WHAT_WORKED" \
  --what-surprised-me "$WHAT_SURPRISED"

The helper resolves the rest:

• pr_number, merged_at, created_at via gh pr view
• estimate_at_start via linearis issues read <ticket> | jq .estimate
• cost_usd from catalyst-state.sh worker aggregate (orchestrator mode) or catalyst-session.sh history --ticket (local fallback)
• wall_time_hours computed from PR createdAt → mergedAt

5. Report back

On success, the helper prints the target file and a one-line summary. Show that to the user.

6. Opportunistic corpus refresh (CTL-813 — off the critical path)

After a successful write, check whether the committed reference-class corpus is stale and offer to refresh it. Best-effort: a refresh failure never fails the ritual.

CORPUS="plugins/pm/scripts/estimate/reference-class-corpus.json"
STALE=$(jq -r '
  (.generated_at // "1970-01-01T00:00:00Z")
  | sub("\\.[0-9]+"; "")
  | (try fromdateiso8601 catch 0)
  | (now - .) > 604800
' "$CORPUS" 2>/dev/null || echo "false")

If STALE is true (corpus older than 7 days), tell the user and offer to run the refresh:

plugins/pm/scripts/estimate/refresh-corpus.sh

It re-runs Extract → Collect → Score and merges fresh entries over the committed corpus (your just-written estimate_actual flows in as the human ground-truth override). The refresh leaves the corpus change in the working tree — show the user the summary line and let them commit/PR it (or re-run with --commit). If the user declines or the refresh fails, log and move on.

On failure, surface the helper's error verbatim. The helper fails loud with actionable messages — don't paraphrase them. Common causes and fixes:

| Error fragment | Meaning | Fix | |---|---|---| | required: --estimate-actual | You did not collect the re-score | Re-prompt the user | | PR #N has no mergedAt | PR isn't merged yet | Run after merge | | could not resolve estimate via linearis | Linear unreachable or ticket has no estimate | Pass --estimate-start <int> | | no cost data for <ticket> in catalyst-state or session history | No cost telemetry captured for this ticket | Pass --cost-usd <float> explicitly | | already exists in ...; pass --force to replace | Skill was run twice for same (ticket, pr) | Either skip, or re-run with --force |

Flags the helper accepts (for power users or auto-trigger from other skills)

plugins/dev/scripts/compound-log.sh write <ticket> [options]

  --pr <number>               PR number (default: gh pr view on current branch)
  --merged-at <iso-ts>        override (default: gh pr view mergedAt)
  --created-at <iso-ts>       override (default: gh pr view createdAt)
  --estimate-start <int>      override (default: linearis .estimate)
  --estimate-actual <int>     REQUIRED — post-merge re-score on same scale
  --cost-usd <float>          override (default: catalyst-state/session aggregate)
  --wall-time-hours <float>   override (default: computed from PR timestamps)
  --what-worked <text>        REQUIRED
  --what-surprised-me <text>  REQUIRED
  --thoughts-dir <path>       override thoughts root (default: ./thoughts)
  --force                     replace existing (ticket, pr) entry
  --dry-run                   print entry; write nothing

Schema of a written entry

Each entry is a level-3 heading with a fenced YAML block. Machine consumers (CTL-813): read them back with plugins/dev/scripts/compound-log.sh read (JSON Lines) or … aggregate (per-ticket latest + calibration stats) — refresh-corpus.sh joins estimate_actual into the reference-class corpus as the human ground-truth override.

### CTL-159 — #273 — 2026-04-24T18:32:10Z

```yaml
linear_key: CTL-159
pr_number: 273
merged_at: 2026-04-24T18:32:10Z
estimate_at_start: 3     # CTL-746 scale: 3 → S
estimate_actual: 5       # CTL-746 scale: 5 → M
cost_usd: 2.47
wall_time_hours: 3.2
what_worked: "Tests-first TDD kept the helper script testable."
what_surprised_me: "Prometheus integration wasn't plumbed; local state.json sufficed."

## Data source notes

- **Primary cost source** is local: the `catalyst-state.sh` worker-usage aggregate (when orchestrated) or `catalyst-session.sh history` (standalone). This is deliberate — `claude-code-otel` + Prometheus is referenced in the original spec but not yet wired up in this repo.
- **Prometheus overlay** is gated by `CATALYST_PROMETHEUS_URL`. When set, the helper logs a note to stderr; the HTTP client itself is a follow-up ticket.
- **Linear estimate** is read as an integer from `linearis issues read`. The team's estimation config (T-shirt, Fibonacci, linear) is applied client-side when re-scoring in step 3.

## Testing

```bash
bash plugins/dev/scripts/__tests__/compound-log.test.sh

Covers ISO-week derivation, happy-path writes, append-idempotence, dedup + --force, fail-loud paths for each required field, wall-time computation, and mergedAt-based week routing.

Related

• Spec: thoughts/shared/research/2026-04-24-CTL-159-compound-closing-ritual.md
• Plan: thoughts/shared/plans/2026-04-24-CTL-159-compound-closing-ritual.md
• Auto-invoked (CTL-189/CTL-813): interactively from merge-pr step 12b; autonomously (agent-authored re-score) from phase-monitor-merge after the merge lands
• Consumers (CTL-813): compound-log.sh read/aggregate → refresh-corpus.sh feeds estimate_actual into reference-class-corpus.json; /catalyst-dev:ticket-retro reads the weekly files for the estimation-calibration summary