MCI

How to identify and capture Minimum Coherent Insights.

Core Principle

Coherent insight: the smallest learning that changes future behavior.

MCI = Minimum Coherent Insight. Not a vague takeaway — a specific lesson that, once known, prevents the same mistake or enables a new capability.

Failure mode: confusing feelings with insights. "That was hard" is not an insight. "Verify assumptions before acting" is.

1. Identify

Extract the transferable lesson.

1.1. Ask "what would I tell past-me?"

• •❌ "I learned a lot" → ✅ "Check the return type before calling"
• •❌ "That was tricky" → ✅ "Config files are loaded before env vars"

1.2. Distinguish observation from insight

• •Observation: what happened
• •Insight: what it means for the future
• •❌ "The deploy failed" → ✅ "Always run migrations before deploy"

1.3. Make it transferable

• •Would this help someone else in a similar situation?
• •❌ "I should have checked" → ✅ "Validate inputs at system boundaries"

2. Scope

Smallest learning that changes behavior.

2.1. Specific enough to apply

• •❌ "Be more careful" → ✅ "Run tests before pushing"
• •❌ "Think harder" → ✅ "Write the expected output before writing the code"

2.2. General enough to transfer

• •❌ "Don't forget the semicolon on line 47" → ✅ "Syntax errors often hide at statement boundaries"
• •❌ "Check config.yaml" → ✅ "Check config files when behavior differs from code"

2.3. One insight per capture

• •Don't bundle unrelated learnings
• •❌ "Learned about deploys and also testing and also code review" → ✅ Three separate MCIs

3. Capture

Write it down or lose it.

3.1. Capture immediately

• •Insights decay fast
• •❌ "Will write it up later" → ✅ Write it now

3.2. State as imperative when possible

• •❌ "I realized X is important" → ✅ "Always do X"
• •❌ "It turns out Y matters" → ✅ "Check Y first"

3.3. Include the trigger

• •What situation does this apply to?
• •❌ "Validate inputs" → ✅ "Validate inputs at system boundaries"
• •❌ "Test edge cases" → ✅ "Test edge cases when parsing user input"

4. Migrate

Insights should flow to where they'll be used.

4.1. Daily → Weekly → Skill

• •Same insight appearing multiple times? Migrate it up
• •❌ Same lesson in 4 daily threads → ✅ Add to relevant skill

4.2. Choose the right home

• •Where would future-you look for this?
• •❌ Buried in a daily thread → ✅ In the skill for that task

4.3. Delete after migrating

• •Don't duplicate insights across locations
• •❌ Copy to skill, keep in daily → ✅ Move to skill, mark done in daily

MCI vs MCA

Prefer MCA over MCI. If you can act, act. Insights are what remain after acting.

Quick Test

Before capturing, ask:

1. •Is this specific enough to apply?
2. •Is this general enough to transfer?
3. •Would past-me have avoided the problem with this knowledge?

If any answer is "no" — refine it.