find-related-work

# Find Related Work Skill

You have the ability to search the journal for past work related to the current task.

## When to Use This Skill

Use this skill **proactively** when:

1. **Facing similar problems**
   - Current task resembles past work
   - User asks to implement something you may have done before
   - Pattern recognition suggests related history

2. **Making technical decisions**
   - Architecture choices similar to past decisions
   - Technology selection (libraries, frameworks)
   - Design patterns or approaches

3. **Troubleshooting issues**
   - Bug seems familiar
   - Similar error messages or symptoms
   - Related to previously fixed issues

4. **Building on past work**
   - Extending existing features
   - Integrating with previous implementations
   - Following established patterns

5. **User explicitly asks**
   - "Have we done something like this before?"
   - "When did we implement X?"
   - "How did we solve Y last time?"
   - "Find anything about Z"

## How to Find Related Work

**Method 1: Keyword search**
```
journal_search(
  query="authentication",  # Technology, concept, or feature
  limit=10
)
```

**Method 2: Time-based search**
```
journal_time_query(
  time_expression="last month",
  query="caching"  # Optional: narrow down results
)
```

**Method 3: Project-specific search**
```
journal_search(
  query="database migration",
  project="my-api"  # Focus on specific project
)
```

**Method 4: Project history**
```
journal_list_recent(
  project="mobile-app",
  limit=20  # Get comprehensive project context
)
```

## Search Strategies

**Broad to narrow:**
1. Start with general terms ("auth", "cache")
2. Narrow if too many results ("OAuth2", "Redis cache")
3. Add project filter if needed

**Technology-focused:**
- Framework names: "React", "FastAPI", "PostgreSQL"
- Library names: "JWT", "Redis", "SQLAlchemy"
- Tool names: "Docker", "GitHub Actions", "pytest"

**Concept-focused:**
- Features: "authentication", "notifications", "file uplo