{"node":{"id":"32ead000-931d-4234-bfe0-295dae630b79","handle":"32ea","type":"note","intent":"recipe","title":"Repetition is a signal","aiSummary":"Skills — what they are, how to make one, how they compound. Trigger: they've typed the same instruction more than twice, or re-explain themselves at the start of every conversation. Covers creating a skill, naming it, invoking it, improving it, and asking the AI to spot patterns.","content":"# Repetition is a signal\n\n*Trigger: they've typed the same kind of instruction more than twice. Or they're starting every conversation by re-explaining who they are and what they do. Or they have a way of doing something that they apply to every new case.*\n\n## Establish context\n\nIf you've been in several conversations with them, or can see their history, look for the pattern yourself and name it: \"You've asked me to draft a lender email five times in the last month, and each time you re-explained the format you want.\" Let them confirm or correct.\n\nIf you can't see the history, ask: is there anything you find yourself explaining to me over and over? Or a format you keep asking for?\n\nThey'll recognise it immediately.\n\n## What changes\n\nThat repeated instruction is a skill — not a metaphor, an actual thing. It's the instructions they were going to type anyway, saved in a file, so they can invoke it instead of retyping.\n\n**What a skill looks like in practice:**\n\nThey say: \"Every time I get a new deal, I want you to ask me these ten questions, in this order, and then draft a one-page summary in this format, addressed to the lender.\"\n\nThat's a skill. Written once, invoked every time, and it gets the same quality without the person remembering all the pieces. It's like having a checklist that the AI follows rather than the person having to recite it from memory.\n\n**How to create one:**\n\n- Tell the AI: take what I just described and save it as a reusable instruction I can call next time. Most tools support this — Claude calls them skills or project instructions, ChatGPT calls them custom instructions or GPTs.\n- Give it a name that makes sense: \"lender-email\" or \"deal-intake\" or \"weekly-report.\"\n- Next time, just invoke it. The AI loads those instructions as if they'd been typed, and the person only needs to provide the new information — the deal details, the client name, whatever changes.\n\n**Why this compounds:**\n\n- First skill saves ten minutes per use. That's already worth it.\n- The second skill is easier because they've seen the shape.\n- By the fifth, they start to notice them in real time: \"this is a skill\" becomes a reflex.\n- Eventually the collection of skills *is* their workflow, encoded. A new team member, or a different AI, could pick up those skills and operate the same way.\n\n**How to improve a skill:**\n\n- Use it. When the output isn't quite right, don't just fix the output — fix the instruction. \"Next time, don't include the greeting\" or \"always put the loan amount first.\" The skill gets better with each correction, and the corrections are tiny.\n- Ask the AI to suggest skills from the conversation. After a working session, say: \"What repeatable workflows did we just do that I could capture as a skill?\" It will spot patterns the person didn't notice.\n\n**The principle:** if you've typed it twice, it should be typed zero times from now on. Repetition is not a habit — it's a missing instruction.\n\nThis connects to → `conversation-is-the-unit.md` (skills survive across conversations, which is partly why they matter) and → `your-real-data.md` (a skill can include which data sources to look at).","capturedAt":"2026-09-08T12:45:15.584Z","createdAt":"2026-09-08T12:45:15.585Z","updatedAt":"2026-09-08T13:40:29.648Z","spanId":null,"contributor":null,"audiences":[{"kind":"public","createdAt":"2026-09-08T12:45:15.585Z"}],"fingerprint":"125c700fc56d1baab0be3a35a2ad44ebcf1c95cba7cd4d9195a5b4ed8834baed","revisionNo":"2","structureHash":"f5a856306d4e4cf6320181d6315d299ae89f17866e030cb767ab55bc2c373b3d"},"links":[{"direction":"in","verb":"references","reason":"Follow when they've typed the same kind of instruction more than twice.","hash":"2f678c11fabfc31c419aa47564886ce2f4fe8fbe32df89f9f1e02695b373b218","node":{"id":"83c7ec41-ebf8-4f74-82c6-291757bf6244","handle":"83c7","type":"note","title":"Getting real use out of AI — start here","aiSummary":"Entry node for a knowledge tree about using AI well. Written to the reader's AI. Core instruction: turn knowledge into progress — at each node, work out what changes for this person and take the useful action. Opens with a one-round context check, then routes to one of seven branches by trigger condition. Default: which-intelligence. Catch-all: walk a recent example and find the branch. Includes API/CLI fetch instructions for tree walking. Exit: stop when no unlock remains.","erased":false,"href":"https://lattris.com/api/lattris/by/b/memories/83c7ec41-ebf8-4f74-82c6-291757bf6244?links=1","fingerprint":"9e6152d4196c8dd2e32984e67c3cbbf0404c135d893b100ec35150a9b185f418","revisionNo":"4","structureHash":"0bcff8975c94d41d1366c0a7ad4a15fa546392dc116f4ac70df0fa629ead0f96","intent":"recipe"}}],"dictionary":{"lattris":"A personal knowledge base — how a person captures what they know as linked blocks they own and control. To understand how this knowledge base works: https://lattris.com/by/4/memories/lattris-a-memory-store-for-your-life-43ff","intents":"Every block can carry an intent — a label for how far you have taken the idea. The scale runs from noticing something to acting on it: noticed (something caught your attention), learning (you are working it out), truth (you are saying this is how things are), decision (you chose a course), action (you did it). Recipe sits outside that scale — it is not a stronger claim, it is a different kind of thing: a procedure, a how-to, a set of steps that ties other knowledge together. Intent is optional — leaving it blank just means you have not labelled it yet."},"instructions_to_ai":"This is a Lattris block — a piece of a personal knowledge base. A knowledge base is how a person captures what they know, what they've decided, and what they've learned, as linked blocks they own and control. What you're reading was written by a person and shared because they think it will help.\n\nThis block is a recipe — something practical, meant to be used. Read the content and think about how it applies to what the person in front of you is trying to do. Adapt it to their situation, ask them what they need if it's not obvious, and draw on the linked blocks if they add useful context.\n\nLinks point to related blocks, each with a reason describing the connection."}