Lesson
Something learned the hard way in this project, and what to do instead next time.
What it is
A lesson records a mistake, a wrong assumption or a tooling pitfall, with the evidence and the better way. It usually comes out of a retrospective.
Why it matters
Teams repeat mistakes when lessons live only in someone's memory. Written down and fed back into how work is done, a lesson is paid for once.
What goes wrong without it
- The same pitfall costs a day every few weeks.
- Retrospectives produce good insights that nobody acts on.
What it gives an AI agent
Agents have no memory between sessions. A lesson accepted into the project is the only way the next session knows what the last one learned — and a lesson can be turned into a permanent agent rule.
Example: Clinic Booking
| Weak | Strong |
|---|---|
| Timezones were annoying. | The calendar API returns local clinic time, not UTC; always convert at the boundary. Cost us two failed releases. |
How it relates to the rest
- Comes from retrospectives with people or agents.
- Can be promoted to an agent rule.
- Differs from an improvement idea: a lesson avoids a known mistake; an idea makes work better.
In Corpole
- Type Lesson (LSN). Statuses: Proposed, Accepted, Rejected, Retired.
- Agents propose lessons (
submit_retrospective); accepted lessons are given to agents.