friction-log

# Friction Log **What this is, in Hoskins's words:** *"A friction log is an informal document that you write as you use a product. You report any confusion or roadblocks you experience. When you've finished, **you hand it off** to the engineers or PMs responsible for the product."* Its purpose: *"we also need outside perspectives. Since outsiders don't have all day, we need a lightweight option for them to help out."* **Mycelium has the opposite problem from most products: it can see its own friction and has no way to send it back.** Measured 2026-09-20 in the dogfood repo: of 91 completed outreach tasks, ~71 were outbound and ~4 inbound. The channel runs one way. --- ## THE ONE RULE THAT MAKES THIS WORK **Report experience. Do not prescribe remedies.** Hoskins: *"See how I described my experience rather than giving prescriptive advice? ... **My job as friction logger is just to call attention to the problem.** If I just said 'you should put the icons into two rows,' they might feel like I'm trying to do their job for them, decide on their roadmap for them, or they might **reject that specific idea and not brainstorm other options**."* **This is the mechanism, not a style preference.** A log that proposes fixes becomes a patch list, and a patch list gets argued with instead of read. **If you catch yourself writing "you should", cut the sentence and describe what happened instead.** ## WHY THE AGENT DRAFTS IT Hoskins's design is built around the fact that outsiders wil...