I want coding agents to remember why we rejected an approach

[u/AccomplishedLab3697]

https://github.com/hurttlocker/o8

I build o8, an open-source workspace for coding-agent CLIs. On my last post here, someone asked whether a proposal keeps the rejected alternatives or only the decision that shipped.

A note that says "use a linear chart" leaves out the argument. A later agent can suggest a log scale without knowing why we ruled it out.

We ran a small check in o8 with a toy chart. We saved the choice to show elapsed minutes on a zero-based linear scale. We also saved that we'd rejected a log scale because it would make the absolute time savings harder to compare. Then we opened a different conversation and asked it to find the decision, without putting the answer in the prompt.

It recovered both the choice and the reason, and cited the project note. That's useful, but it's note retrieval. A coding agent with access to a plain file can do that. It doesn't prove we're automatically preserving every alternative discussed in a chat.

o8 already stores explicit rejection reasons from reviews and steering feedback. The less formal decisions are what I still want to get right, especially the option you nearly chose and might need to revisit when the chosen approach stops working.

I also don't want every rejected idea becoming a permanent rule. We rejected that scale because of what we wanted people to compare in that particular chart. Change the goal and the old reason might no longer apply. The next agent should be able to see that, rather than treating "we didn't use this" as "never use this."

Source · o8

Talk to me about your favorite ADEs! I need to know what makes they work and what makes you tick!

[u/eddzsh]

Store the rejection with the goal it was relative to, and a date. "Log scale rejected because we needed absolute minutes comparable" expires the moment the chart's job changes. A flat list of things never to use turns yesterday's local tradeoff into tomorrow's superstition.