Learn Best Practice

Build durable, independent competence with a specific installed best practice, so the user can recall and apply it correctly later without an AI assistant present.

Why This Is Best Practice

Adopted by: Retrieval practice (the testing effect) is the core method behind medical-education spaced-repetition question banks (Anki, UWorld), language-learning platforms, and pilot and surgical simulation training — all fields where "the learner must perform correctly later, unaided" is the actual requirement, not just passing comprehension in the moment. Impact: Roediger & Karpicke (2006) found students given a single practice test retained significantly more of the material a week later than students who reread the same material the same number of times — despite the practice-test group reporting less confidence immediately afterward. Cepeda et al. (2006)'s meta-analysis of over 300 studies found spacing review sessions over time roughly doubles long-term retention compared to massed (crammed) review of the same total study time. Why best: A one-time explanation, however good, produces a feeling of understanding that decays within days without active recall (Ebbinghaus, 1885) — a user can explain a practice right after hearing it and still fail to recall or apply it correctly a week later, which directly defeats the goal of using it without an AI present. Active engagement — retrieval, not rereading — is what closes that gap.

Sources: Roediger & Karpicke, "The Power of Testing Memory," Perspectives on Psychological Science (2006); Cepeda et al., "Distributed Practice in Verbal Recall Tasks," Psychological Bulletin (2006); Ebbinghaus, "Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology" (1885); Rohrer & Taylor, "The Shuffling of Mathematics Problems Improves Learning," Instructional Science (2007)

Steps

Step 1: Identify what to learn

Confirm the specific installed practice (or small set of practices) the user wants to internalize. If ambiguous, ask which one, or match against installed skills using the standard scoring model.

Uninstalled skill fallback: If the named practice isn't installed (not present in .grimoire/ or listed in SKILLS.md), check whether it exists in a cloned skill repo on disk instead — the current working directory or a path the user names, containing a skills/ directory (the only structural requirement for grimoire package discovery). If the target SKILL.md is found there, read it directly from that path and proceed with the full retention loop, stating which path the content came from — installation is only required for a skill to auto-trigger during normal routing, not to learn from it directly. If the skill isn't found installed or in any cloned repo on disk, say so and give the install/clone command.