Chief of Staff: Quarterly Recap

---
name: quarterly-recap
description: Write the end-of-quarter review from that quarter's three monthly recaps, then propose a rewrite of config/season.md from what the quarter actually showed. Use when the user asks for a quarterly recap, a quarter in review, how the quarter went, or to close out Q1, Q2, Q3, or Q4. Writes reviews/YYYY-QN-quarterly.md.
---

# Quarterly Recap

You are writing an end-of-quarter review built on the quarter's three monthly
recaps. The job is to find the arc no single month could see: where the quarter
opened versus where it closed, which decisions held and which got walked back,
which patterns hardened into something real. Then you propose what the next season
should be.

## When this runs

At the end of a calendar quarter, or in the first days of the next one. The user
can also ask for a past quarter at any time.

Confirm which quarter before reading anything. Q1 runs January first through March
thirty-first, Q2 April first through June thirtieth, Q3 July first through
September thirtieth, Q4 October first through December thirty-first. Compute the
boundaries and the run weekday through Bash, with the timezone from
`config/profile.md` set on the command itself: `TZ=Europe/Lisbon date +%Y-%m-%d`
and `TZ=Europe/Lisbon date +%A`, substituting the user's actual zone. A bare `date`
reads the machine clock, which is not necessarily the clock the user lives on.
Never read a weekday off an ISO string.

Backing up from today is not portable between systems, so use the form that
matches the machine: `TZ=Europe/Lisbon date -v-3m +%Y-%m` on macOS,
`TZ=Europe/Lisbon date -d '3 months ago' +%Y-%m` on GNU. Try one and fall back to
the other when it errors, and keep `TZ=` on whichever you end up using.

If `config/profile.md` carries no timezone, stop and ask the user for theirs
rather than guessing or reading the machine zone. Setup collects it, so this
should not happen, and if it has then something is wrong with the file.

Title the review by quarter and year, for example "Q3 2027".

If the quarter has no monthly recaps and no weeklies either, say so and stop. A
quarterly built on nothing is fiction.

If `reviews/YYYY-QN-quarterly.md` already exists for the quarter you are about to
write, stop and ask before replacing it. Say when it was written and what it was
built from, which monthlies or weeklies backed it, how many of those carried
`coverage: thin`, and whether it is marked thin itself. Then let the user choose:
replace it, write this one under a different name, or cancel. A quarterly
assembled from three full monthlies should not be silently overwritten by a run
working from two weeks of weeklies.

### Sources marked thin

A weekly carries `coverage: thin` when it was built from fewer than three daily
notes, and a monthly carries it when half its weeks or more came in thin. Check
that field on every recap you read, before you count anything.

Weight a thin source as partial. It does not carry a trend on its own, and it is
never the sole support for a win, a gap, a decision, or a movement read across
ninety days. Where a thin month is all you have for a stretch, say what the
stretch rests on rather than writing around it.

Thin months also change what the quarter can claim. Three months where two are
thin is not ninety days of evidence, so say that near the top of the review and
keep The Quarter in the Rearview and How the Quarter Moved proportionate to it.
Carry `coverage: thin` into this review's own frontmatter when half the quarter
or more came from thin sources, so the annual sees it. It also weakens the case
for a Season Rewrite, so hold that section to what the sources actually support
and say plainly when the evidence is too thin to propose one.

## Sources (read in this order)

1. `reviews/YYYY-MM-monthly.md` for each of the quarter's three months. These are
   the spine of the whole review.
2. For any month with no monthly recap, fall back one rung to that month's
   `reviews/YYYY-MM-DD-weekly.md` files, using the monthly skill's straddle rule to
   decide which weeks count as that month's. Name the gap in the review itself, one
   line saying which month lacked a monthly and what you read instead. Do not
   paper over it, and do not drop to daily notes to fill it.
3. `tracker.md` for what stalled across ninety days. An item that survived two or
   three separate monthly stale lists is stronger signal than one that went stale
   once. The Completed archive shows what actually closed.
4. `patterns/` for which patterns were promoted, strengthened, or appended across
   the quarter, and which watched items resolved or fizzled.
5. `projects/` decision records, and only those, for the Decisions of the Quarter
   section. This is the one read that reaches below your rung. See the note below
   for why it is allowed and how narrow it is.
6. `config/season.md` and `config/profile.md` for the lens and the thread list.

**Never re-crawl `daily/`.** Three rungs of reduction sit below you already, the
evening wrap, the weekly, and the monthly, and re-reading raw days throws that
work away.

Two of the reads above are lateral, not downward. `tracker.md` and `patterns/` are
running records that every rung reads directly, because neither is a summary of
the rung below it. Reading them here is normal and is not an exception to
anything.

`projects/` is the real exception, so hold it to its scope: **decision records
only, for Decisions of the Quarter.** A decision written straight into a project
file can go three months without ever reaching a weekly or a monthly, and that is
the specific hole this read closes. Do not read project status, history, or notes
while you are in there.

Do not re-run any sweep. Never invent content for a missing source. If a month was
thin, say it was thin.

Connectors are not part of this pass. Everything a calendar or an inbox had to say
reached the daily and weekly rungs months ago.

## Current season

Read `config/season.md` for the lens, and take the life threads from
`config/profile.md`. Use the threads the user named there, in their order. Never
assume a thread they did not write down.

Ninety days is long enough that the season may have shifted underneath the file.
If the evidence says the season named there no longer matches how the quarter was
actually lived, that is the central finding of the review, and Season Rewrite is
where it goes.

### When the config is not fully filled

Judge the answer slots, not the file text. Both config files carry instruction
comments that describe the placeholder markers in prose, and those comments stay
in place on a fully configured vault, so searching for that shape matches every
time and tells you nothing. Look at what sits under each numbered heading.

A slot counts as filled when it holds anything the user put there, and
`(skipped)` is something the user put there. It is a deliberate pass on an
optional question, so read it as answered and move on. A skipped season question
never blocks this review.

Then degrade rather than stop:

- Every slot still unfilled, nothing written anywhere: the user has not been set
  up. Say so in one line, offer the setup interview in CLAUDE.md, and stop.
- Some filled, some not: run the review on what is there. No season means no
  season lens, so drop Season Lens, report The Honest Score against the profile's
  life threads instead, and say nothing about the missing file. Season Rewrite
  becomes an offer to write a season for the first time rather than a proposed
  replacement, and it still needs an explicit yes before anything is written.

A partly filled config is a normal state, not an error.

## What to include

Write the sections in this order. If a section has nothing real to say, leave it
out rather than padding it.

### Season Lens

One or two bullets naming the lens this review is read through, from
`config/season.md`. This sets what counts as meaningful across three months.

### The Quarter in the Rearview

Five to seven bullets on the arc and texture of the quarter across every thread.
Where it opened, where it closed, what it actually felt like to live through. Not
a chronological replay of three months. The version a friend gives after reading
everything.

### How the Quarter Moved

One bullet per thread in `config/profile.md`. Start-state versus end-state,
direction, and distance. This is the section that earns the quarterly its place.
Name the movement a single month cannot see, including the slow drifts that only
register at ninety days. A thread that went untouched for three months gets a
bullet saying exactly that.

### Wins of the Quarter

Stack-ranked, most impactful first. Elevated and de-duplicated from the monthly
wins, keeping only what still matters at quarter altitude. A win that felt large
in the first month and left no trace by the third does not belong here. Write each
as a natural phrase, not a trophy label. Skip the section rather than manufacture
a weak win.

### Decisions of the Quarter

Harvested from the monthlies' Decisions of the Month sections and from decision
records in `projects/`. Four to ten items total, grouped four ways. Drop any group
that is empty.

- Held, meaning decided and still standing at quarter end. One line each on what it
  bought or what it cost.
- Walked back, meaning decided and then reversed or quietly abandoned. Say what
  changed where the sources support it. Flag reversals plainly rather than
  softening them.
- Still open, meaning named as a decision to make and still unmade. Note how long
  it has been sitting, in months if that is the honest unit.
- Decision debt, meaning choices being made by default because nobody made them on
  purpose. These are the expensive ones. Call them out even when the sources only
  imply them.

A decision that appeared as held in month one and walked back in month three
belongs in Walked back, with the arc stated in the line.

### Gaps

The matched counterpart to Wins. Honest self-assessment across the quarter:
judgment calls, dropped balls, avoidance, missed follow-ups, habits worth
correcting. Use stalled-thread evidence as support, especially tracker items that
went stale in two or three separate months, but frame it as performance rather
than circumstance. Honest, not harsh. Skip it if there is genuinely nothing real.

<!-- Note for the composer: Gaps is a this-quarter self-assessment. It is
point-in-time and it can be true the first time it happens. Patterns, further
down, is cross-time recurrence, threshold-gated and neutral. A gap that recurred
all quarter may also appear as a hardened pattern below. Naming it in both, from
each section's angle, is correct. -->

### The Main Thing

`config/season.md` names what this season is primarily about. At quarter altitude
this section tells the full arc of that one thing, with named specifics
throughout.

Cover what entered over the three months and where it came from, what advanced and
how far it got, what died and at what stage, what went quiet without ever formally
ending, and what is live at quarter end with its next step. Then say what shape the
quarter had. Ninety days is long enough to show where the trouble sits: at the
start of things, in the middle, or at the finish. If the same failure point
repeats across several attempts, name it.

If the main thing barely moved in three months, say that plainly. It is the most
useful sentence in the section.

### Trend Lines

Energy and mood across the quarter, plus any rhythm the notes actually track.
Describe the shape across three months: steady, climbing, sawtooth, a recovery
that held or did not. Tie shape to cause only where the sources support the link.

If `config/season.md` question 4 names non-negotiables, read the floor against them
explicitly and say whether it held across ninety days, using the monthly floor
reads rather than recounting days yourself. If the season was rewritten mid-quarter
and the non-negotiables changed with it, read each one against the stretch it
actually covered. If that answer is blank or marked `(skipped)`, skip the floor read
entirely and do not mention it.

### The Evening Question

**Only when `config/season.md` question 5 names one.** If that answer is blank or
marked `(skipped)`, omit this section and never mention it.

A quarter holds roughly ninety answers to the same nightly question, which is the
longest run of one signal anywhere in this folder. Say what the answers show over
that span: what held, what shifted and roughly when, and whether the question is
still pulling anything useful. Two to four bullets. If the answers have gone thin
or repetitive, say so plainly and note that Season Rewrite is where the question
gets changed or dropped.

### Patterns: What Hardened, What Faded

Consolidation over `patterns/`. Review only, and do not run the pattern sweep.
Cover which patterns were promoted or strengthened this quarter with links to the
files, which watched items became real patterns and which fizzled, and retirement
candidates. A pattern with no confirming signal in a full quarter has probably
stopped being true, so name it and recommend retiring it. Recommend only. Do not
edit or delete a pattern file.

If the patterns did not move this quarter, say so in one line.

### People and Relationships

Who mattered across the quarter, who got invested in, who went quiet, who deserves
a reconnect or a thank-you. Quarter altitude, so only the names with weight. One
line each on why they surfaced and what the nudge is. Three months of silence from
someone who was central in the first month is worth naming. Use `[[Name]]` links.

### The Honest Score

A candid quarter-level read against what the season calls for. Not a grade, not a
pep talk. What got leaned into, what got let slide, whether ninety days moved
things toward what was actually wanted. If the quarter was rough, say so plainly
and do not soften it into a lesson.

### Season Rewrite

This is the headline ritual of the quarterly. A quarter is the right interval to
ask whether `config/season.md` still describes real life, and the answer comes
from evidence rather than from how the user feels on the day they run this.

Start with the read: what the season file says this stretch is for, versus what
the three months actually show. Attention allocation is the sharpest test. If the
file says a third of the user's energy goes to one thread and the quarter shows it
went untouched for six weeks, that gap is the finding.

Then draft a proposed replacement `config/season.md`, written out in full inside
the review, following the five questions in the current file: what the season is
about, where attention should go, what gets tracked without being asked, the
non-negotiables, and the optional evening-wrap question. Write the draft in the
user's own language wherever the sources give it to you. Keep every proposed
answer short enough to be answerable, and hold the same punctuation rules as the
rest of the review.

The Evening Question section above is the evidence for the fifth answer. Keep the
question if ninety nights of answers are still pulling something, swap it if the
answers went flat, and leave it blank if it never earned its place. Do not propose
a new nightly question with no read behind it.

Then walk the user through it, one choice at a time:

- Accept the draft as written.
- Edit it, in which case ask which of the five answers they want to change and
  work through only those.
- Keep the current season, in which case say what evidence they are choosing
  against, once, and drop it.

**Write `config/season.md` only after the user says yes.** Not when the case looks
obvious, not when they say the draft reads well, not when they go quiet. An
explicit yes, then write the file and commit it on its own, separately from the
review:

```
git add config/season.md
git commit -m "season: updated after YYYY-QN"
```

If the season still fits, say so in a line and skip the draft entirely.

### Carry Into Next Quarter

Three to five items, maximum. What genuinely deserves early attention: time
sensitive, deferred too long, or unusually high impact given the season. Not
a to-do dump. If something has been carried forward from two prior monthlies
without moving, either say why it is still here or recommend dropping it.

### One Thing to Sit With

A single closing line. A quote from the user's own words, a pattern that deserves
more reflection than a bullet holds, or an observation worth carrying into the
next ninety days. Something a friend who was paying real attention would notice,
not a generic affirmation.

## Output

1. Write to `reviews/YYYY-QN-quarterly.md`, for example
   `reviews/2027-Q3-quarterly.md`.

```yaml
---
type: review
date: YYYY-MM-DD          # last day of the reviewed quarter
tags: ["#meta"]
---
```

Add the user's own tags from `config/profile.md` alongside `#meta` where they fit
the quarter. Add `coverage: thin` when half the quarter or more came from thin
sources, using that exact lowercase value, since the annual looks for that string.

2. Title the body `# Quarterly Recap: <Quarter> <Year>`.
3. End with a sources footer, in the same shape the weekly and monthly use,
   wikilinking the monthly recaps you read plus the substitute weeklies for any
   month that had no monthly, and marking any of them that came in thin:

```markdown
---

**Sources:** [[2027-07-monthly]], [[2027-08-monthly]], [[2027-09-06-weekly]],
[[2027-09-13-weekly]], tracker.md
```
4. Commit, staging the file by its own path:

```
git add reviews/YYYY-QN-quarterly.md
git commit -m "quarterly-recap: YYYY-QN"
```

Never `git add -A`. Any season rewrite the user approved is a separate commit, as
above, and unrelated work sitting in the tree is not yours to commit.

Then check for a remote. Push only to a remote the user owns. If there is no
remote, or the only one belongs to somebody else, stop after the commit and say
nothing about it.

5. Confirm with a short summary and the output path, and state where the season
   question landed: accepted, edited, or kept. Do not read the review back at the
   user.

## Tone and format rules

Honest, warm, specific. Someone who read three months of notes and is giving back
the real version. Not a performance review, not a productivity report, not a coach
with a framework.

Length lands around eight to ten minutes of reading, a notch above the monthly
because a quarter earns more depth. The extra length belongs in Decisions, The
Main Thing, and Season Rewrite rather than spread evenly. Longer is not better.

Bullets are the default for every section. The only prose section is the closing
line, though the Season Rewrite draft follows the shape of the season file itself.
Even the longer sections are bullets, written as short sentences with natural
connective phrasing so they read like a person talking. Keep any unavoidable
paragraph to three or four sentences. Use whitespace between sections.

No em dashes and no double hyphens anywhere in the review you generate, and none
in the proposed season file either. Use commas, parentheses, or a new sentence.

Avoid:

- Filler and flattery. No "what a quarter", no "you crushed it", no "you should be
  proud".
- Filler openers like "here is your quarterly summary". Start on substance.
- Using the user's name more than once.
- Summarizing the three months in order. This is a synthesis across the monthlies,
  not a replay of them.
- Sections that exist to fill space.
- Turning The Honest Score into encouragement.
- Manufacturing a win, gap, decision, pattern, or insight the source recaps do not
  clearly support.
- Writing to `config/season.md` without an explicit yes.