Jean-Luc Makiola
407fa45280
Archive v1.1 artifacts (roadmap, requirements, phases) to milestones/. Evolve PROJECT.md with shipped requirements and new key decisions. Reorganize ROADMAP.md with collapsed milestone groupings. Update retrospective with v1.1 lessons. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
5.8 KiB
5.8 KiB
Project Retrospective
A living document updated after each milestone. Lessons feed forward into future planning.
Milestone: v1.0 — MVP
Shipped: 2026-03-15 Phases: 3 | Plans: 10 | Commits: 53
What Was Built
- Full gear collection with item CRUD, categories, weight/cost totals, and image uploads
- Planning threads with candidate comparison and thread resolution into collection
- Named setups (loadouts) composed from collection items with live totals
- Dashboard home page with summary cards
- Onboarding wizard for first-time user experience
- Service-level and route-level integration tests
What Worked
- Coarse 3-phase structure kept momentum high — no planning overhead between tiny phases
- TDD approach for backend (service tests first) caught issues early and made frontend integration smooth
- Service layer with DI (db as first param) made testing trivial with in-memory SQLite
- Visual verification checkpoints at end of each phase caught UI issues before moving on
- Bun + Vite + Hono stack had zero friction — everything worked together cleanly
What Was Inefficient
- Verification plans (XX-03) were mostly rubber-stamp auto-approvals in yolo mode — could skip for v2
- Some ROADMAP plan checkboxes never got checked off (cosmetic, didn't affect tracking)
- Performance metrics in STATE.md had stale placeholder data alongside real data
Patterns Established
- Service functions:
(db, params) => resultwith production db default - Route-level integration tests using Hono context variables for db injection
- Prices in cents everywhere, display conversion in UI only
- Tab navigation via URL search params for shareability
- Atomic sync pattern: delete-all + re-insert in transaction
Key Lessons
- Coarse granularity (3 phases for an MVP) is the right call for a greenfield app — avoids over-planning
- The Vite proxy pattern is required when using TanStack Router plugin — can't do Bun fullstack serving
- drizzle-kit needs better-sqlite3 even on Bun — can't use bun:sqlite for migrations
- Onboarding state belongs in the database (settings table), not in client-side stores
Cost Observations
- Model mix: quality profile throughout
- Sessions: ~10 plan executions across 2 days
- Notable: Most plans completed in 3-5 minutes, total wall time under 1 hour
Milestone: v1.1 — Fixes & Polish
Shipped: 2026-03-15 Phases: 3 | Plans: 7 | Files changed: 65
What Was Built
- Fixed threads table and thread creation with categoryId support and modal dialog
- Overhauled planning tab with educational empty state, pill tabs, and category filter
- Fixed image display bug (Zod schema missing imageFilename)
- Redesigned image upload as 4:3 hero preview area with placeholders on all cards
- Migrated categories from emoji to Lucide icons with 119-icon curated picker
- Built IconPicker with search, 8 group tabs, and portal popover
What Worked
- Auto-advance pipeline (discuss → plan → execute) completed both phases end-to-end without manual intervention
- Wave-based parallel execution in Phase 6 — plans 06-02 and 06-03 ran concurrently with no conflicts
- Executor auto-fix deviations handled cascading renames gracefully (emoji→icon required touching hooks/routes beyond plan scope)
- Context discussion upfront captured clear decisions — no ambiguity during execution
- Verifier caught real issues (Zod schema root cause) and confirmed all must-haves
What Was Inefficient
- Schema renames cascade through many files (12 in 06-01) — executors had to auto-fix downstream references not in the plan
- Some ROADMAP.md plan checkboxes remained unchecked despite plans completing (cosmetic tracking drift)
- Phase 5 executor installed inline SVGs for ImageUpload icons, then Phase 6 added lucide-react anyway — could have coordinated
Patterns Established
- Portal-based popover pattern: reused from EmojiPicker → IconPicker (click-outside, escape, portal rendering)
- LucideIcon dynamic lookup component:
icons[name]from lucide-react for runtime icon resolution - Curated icon data file pattern: static data organized by groups for picker UIs
- Hero image area: full-width 4:3 preview at top of forms with placeholder/upload/preview states
Key Lessons
- Zod validation middleware silently strips unknown fields — always add new schema fields to Zod schemas, not just DB schema
- Auto-fix deviations are a feature, not a bug — executors that fix cascading renames save manual replanning
- Auto-advance pipeline works well for straightforward phases — interactive discussion ensures decisions are clear before autonomous execution
- Parallel Wave 2 execution with no file overlap is safe and efficient
Cost Observations
- Model mix: opus for execution, sonnet for verification/checking
- Sessions: 1 continuous auto-advance pipeline for both phases
- Notable: Full milestone (discuss + plan + execute × 2 phases) completed in a single session
Cross-Milestone Trends
Process Evolution
| Milestone | Commits | Phases | Key Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| v1.0 | 53 | 3 | Initial build, coarse granularity, TDD backend |
| v1.1 | ~30 | 3 | Auto-advance pipeline, parallel wave execution, auto-fix deviations |
Cumulative Quality
| Milestone | LOC | Files | Tests |
|---|---|---|---|
| v1.0 | 5,742 | 114 | Service + route integration |
| v1.1 | 6,134 | ~130 | Service + route integration (updated for icon schema) |
Top Lessons (Verified Across Milestones)
- Coarse phases with TDD backend → smooth frontend integration
- Service DI pattern enables fast, reliable testing without mocks
- Always update Zod schemas alongside DB schema — middleware silently strips unvalidated fields
- Auto-advance pipeline (discuss → plan → execute) works well for clear-scope phases