---
title: "Reflective Learning Systems"
description: How CoWork OS positions Workflow Intelligence and its reflective learning stack against adjacent agent ecosystems.
---

# Reflective Learning Systems

This page focuses on the learning-system shape that matters for CoWork OS today: durable local memory, explicit reflective artifacts, target-scoped backlog, and executor dispatch.

## CoWork OS Positioning

CoWork OS combines two layers:

- a durable learning substrate for memory, feedback, playbooks, profiles, and relationship context
- `Workflow Intelligence`, which turns fresh evidence into hypotheses, critique, a winning recommendation, Dreaming memory-curation candidates, reviewable suggestions, and durable memory candidates

That gives the product a stronger operating shape than a one-shot "improve yourself" prompt chain.

## What The Reflective Layer Adds

| Area | CoWork OS |
|---|---|
| Durable evidence | Workspace artifacts plus indexed SQLite summaries |
| Stable workflow identity | Workflow-intelligence targets across workspace, mailbox, schedule, trigger, briefing, and code targets |
| Reflective stages | Evidence -> hypotheses -> critique -> winner -> Dreaming when memory drift exists -> backlog -> suggestion/action |
| Output shape | Winner, rejected paths, backlog, suggestion, Dreaming candidate, feedback memory |
| Coordination model | Global brain with namespaced target histories |
| Dispatch behavior | Reviewable suggestion by default; guarded auto-create only when policy, trust, and risk allow it |
| Code execution | Downstream executor with worktree isolation and verification |
| Safety boundary | Existing executor approvals and policies, not a separate reflective gate |

## Why This Matters

The point is not just memory retention. The point is durable reflection:

- each run leaves a trace
- the next run starts from that trace
- winners and rejected paths are explicit
- backlog becomes target-specific instead of fuzzy
- memory maintenance becomes reviewable through Dreaming candidates instead of hidden rewrites
- execution is downstream from reflection, not fused to it

That product shape is what lets background automation compound instead of repeatedly rediscovering the same lessons.

## Related Docs

- [Workflow Intelligence](workflow-intelligence.md)
- [Dreaming](dreaming.md)
- [Features](features.md)
- [Zero-Human Company Ops](zero-human-company.md)
- [Reliability Flywheel](reliability-flywheel.md)
