Case Study
What 135 Days of Daily
Goose Usage Taught Me
Empirical findings from instrumented daily practice. Originally presented at Block's AI Tuesday series, June 2026.
135
Days of daily usage
$216
Total token spend
948
Impact points produced
14x
Efficiency multiplier
$216 over 135 days produced 948 impact points. That's 4.4 impact points per dollar. But the distribution is not uniform.
The Thesis
The Tool Didn't Get Smarter.
The Relationship Deepened.
Growth in human-AI collaboration isn't a linear increase in prompt sophistication. It's the emergence of compression, the rise of the floor, and the shift from explicit instruction to orchestrated delegation.
The same dollar produces 14x more value when the practitioner is thinking strategically. Low-DOK days yield 2.3 impact per 100k tokens. High-DOK days yield 42.8 impact per 100k tokens. The tool didn't change. The relationship to the tool changed. That's measurable.
The Core Finding
The same AI tool, the same token budget, the same practitioner. The only variable is the cognitive depth of the prompts. At DOK 3-4 (strategic and extended thinking), every dollar of token spend produces 14x the measurable impact compared to DOK 1-2 (recall and application).
The Data
A Four-Act Growth Story
| Phase | Dates | Avg DOK | DOK 3+4 | Compression |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Onboarding | Jan 28 - Feb 15 | 2.14 | 17.4% | 3.3% |
| 2. Building | Feb 16 - Mar 15 | 2.30 | 25.3% | 2.0% |
| 3. Plateau | Mar 16 - Apr 30 | 2.12 | 16.3% | 3.5% |
| 4. Deepening | May 1 - Jun 11 | 2.29 | 29.3% | 9.9% |
Onboarding
Learning the tools. Every interaction is explicit. DOK stays at Application level. No compression because every intent must be spelled out. The practitioner is building vocabulary with the agent.
Building
Framework creation burst. The peak (DOK 3.45) happens when the Three Dimensions paper is written. The tool is being pushed to its limits. Trust is building. This is the phase where the practitioner discovers what the tool can actually do.
Plateau
Execution-heavy phase. High-volume delegation days dominate. The raw DOK dips because the classifier can't see the orchestration happening above the prompt level. But compression begins to emerge (3.5%) as short directives start replacing long instructions.
Deepening
Strategic work returns with a new character. Compression triples (9.9%). DOK 3+4 hits 29.3%. The practitioner is now operating at Chamber/Orchestra trust level, issuing compressed directives that produce complex output. The gap between raw DOK and adjusted DOK widens because the cognitive complexity has moved from the prompt surface into the orchestration structure.
Findings
What the Data Reveals
1. Focused sessions produce deeper work (+10.5% DOK)
| Session Type | DOK | DOK 3+4 |
|---|---|---|
| High-volume (>200 conversations) | 2.06 | 9.7% |
| Focused (≤50 conversations) | 2.28 | 29.2% |
This is the Orchestra Model in action. Delegation days look "low DOK" because the cognitive complexity lives in the orchestration setup, not in individual prompts. The classifier sees tool execution and scores it DOK 1-2, but the human decision to delegate is itself a DOK 3+ act.
2. Compression is the maturity signal
| Phase | Compression % |
|---|---|
| Onboarding | 3.3% |
| Building | 2.0% |
| Plateau | 3.5% |
| Deepening | 9.9% |
Compression means short directives orchestrating complex workflows. It's trust made visible in the data. When a practitioner says "proceed" and the agent executes a multi-step workflow, that single word carries the weight of all the context built over months of collaboration.
3. The floor has risen
4. Trust evolved from Duet to Chamber
| Orchestra Tier | Sessions | % |
|---|---|---|
| Duet (Tier 2) | 3 | 14% |
| Ensemble (Tier 3) | 1 | 5% |
| Chamber (Tier 4) | 9 | 43% |
| Symphony (Tier 5) | 6 | 29% |
Mean ADT: 4.0 (Chamber). Operating primarily at Chamber/Symphony level. Started at Duet. The Orchestra Model maps this progression: Solo → Duet → Ensemble → Chamber → Symphony → Virtuoso.
Implications
What This Means for Practitioners
Growth is non-linear
The plateau phase (Act 3) isn't stagnation. It's the period where delegation patterns are being internalized. The visible growth (Act 4) only happens because the invisible foundation was built during the plateau.
Measure depth, not volume
A 600-conversation day is not "better" than a 2-conversation day. The 2-conversation day where both prompts are DOK 4 produces more measurable impact than the 600-conversation delegation run. Volume is not a proxy for value.
Compression is the unlock
When you can say "proceed" and the agent executes a complex workflow correctly, that's not laziness. That's the culmination of months of context-building. The short prompt carries the weight of the entire collaboration history.
The tool is the constant
Goose didn't fundamentally change between January and June. The model improved, but the 14x efficiency gap exists within the same practitioner on the same tool. The variable is always the human's cognitive engagement.
Methodology
How This Was Measured
All measurement was performed by the rp-why Goose skill running locally against session history.
- •DOK classification is keyword-based on prompt text (conservative, tends to undercount orchestration-level work)
- •Compression detection requires 2+ signals: short prompt length, high response:prompt ratio, established session context
- •Adjusted DOK bumps compressed prompts by +1 level (capped at 4)
- •ADT is calculated from sub-agent delegation patterns (only available for sessions with sub-agent data)
- •Impact scoring uses a composite of deliverables shipped, PRs merged, and artifacts produced per session
Try It
Measure Your Own Practice
The rp-why skill is open source and installable in any Goose environment. Generate a baseline, track your growth, and see where your collaboration practice falls on the Three Dimensions.
# Install the skill
npx skills add https://github.com/block/agent-skills --skill rp-why
# Generate your baseline
/rp-why init
# Check your current session
/rp-why current
Related
Related Links
Interactive Presentation
The original AI Tuesday slide deck - an interactive walkthrough of the Three Dimensions framework with self-assessment prompts.
rp-why Skill on GitHub
The open-source Goose skill that produced this data. Install it to measure your own practice.
rp-why Data Visualization
Interactive charts showing 141 days of trajectory data, zone diagnostics, and token economics.
Production Agent Workflow
A template for organizing your agent context - the workflow structure that produced these results.