◇ Could this help me?
Yes, and this is one of the more valuable ideas in the library. The diagnosis is exactly right: a failing agent is obvious and self-correcting, while a succeeding agent quietly moves understanding out of your head and into work you did not follow, and that debt only comes due later when something breaks and you are the one who has to explain it. The explain-it-back step is the part that makes it work rather than a nicer summary format, because articulating something is a genuine test of understanding in a way that reading is not, and doing it aloud makes the gaps surface faster. General practice.
As you work on this task, do not save everything for a summary at the end. At each meaningful decision point, stop and tell me four things: what problem you found, why it was happening, what options you considered and rejected, and what trade-off your choice creates. Then ask me to explain that back to you in my own words, and if my explanation is wrong or vague, tell me exactly where it is wrong rather than moving on. I want to be able to review, debug, and explain this work myself afterwards, so treat that as the goal rather than finishing quickly.