Recipe: Engineering observation log writer
A structured daily log format for capturing technical observations, decisions, and open questions during deep engineering work.
Purpose
When reverse-engineering, debugging kernel drivers, or tracing injection chains, state decays fast. This log format forces timestamped, searchable entries that survive context switches.
Template
## [YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM] — Session start **Context:** [binary / subsystem / ticket] **Goal:** [one sentence] ### Observations - [timestamp] [fact] — [source: reg, mem, log, disasm] - [timestamp] [anomaly] — [hypothesis] ### Decisions - [timestamp] [what we chose] — [why, tradeoff] ### Open questions - [ ] [question] — [blocker? y/n] ## [HH:MM] — Session end **State:** [where we left off] **Next:** [first action next session]
Rules
- Every observation cites its source — register dump, memory region, log line, or disassembly offset.
- Decisions record the tradeoff, not just the winner.
- Open questions get a blocker flag so triage stays honest.
- Session start/end timestamps bracket every entry — no orphaned notes.
Integration
Store logs as flat Markdown files in a repo alongside the target binary dumps. Grep across sessions with the observation prefix. Link open questions to Linear tickets by ID.