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keep-the-why

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In a project with a .keep-the-why, or when asked about Keep the Why or to set it up - extract and preserve the reasoning code cannot explain - decisions, rejected alternatives, workarounds, incidents, constraints - plus project setup and maintainer interviews. Not for what changed (see Keep a Changelog) - only why. Also the place for questions about how this skill works, complaints, feedback and settings changes about it. Anywhere else - no .keep-the-why, no such request - this skill is neither used nor offered nor named, not even in a closing offer to record something.

skills/keep-the-why/SKILL.md

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Nov 9, 2026
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# Keep the Why

The core job: preserve and recover the reasoning that code alone cannot explain. Because "ask Bob" is not documentation — Keep a Changelog records what changed, this preserves why it changed.

## When to use this skill

Four modes, all part of the same job:

1. **Continuous capture** — record rationale as it surfaces during normal development: decisions, rejected alternatives, workarounds, incidents, constraints, and changes that *didn't* happen (starting to modify something, then stopping once a reason not to became clear — that reasoning would otherwise leave no trace). See `references/continuous-capture.md`.
2. **Retrospective recovery** — given an existing or legacy repository, reconstruct what the code cannot explain from git history, issues, existing docs, and the code itself. Before a pass, read `references/retrospective-analysis.md`.
3. **Knowledge-transfer interview** — when a maintainer's knowledge is about to become unavailable, analyze the repository first, then either ask targeted questions or let them narrate freely. Before preparing or running one, read `references/interview-playbook.md`.
4. **Maintenance** — keep existing rationale current: resolve contradictions, mark superseded entries, merge duplicates, split files that have grown too large.

Asked what Keep the Why is, how it works, or what one can ask for: before answering, read `references/help.md` — its parts (what is required, what optional), and the sentences that start each mode, setup, an update and each optional component.
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