promote-lessons

name	promote-lessons
description	Sweep Claude's private per-machine memory for team-relevant operational knowledge and propose moving it into the shared repo (or the private ops repo) as draft PRs. Use to promote lessons that accreted privately, or run on a schedule. Never auto-merges; never leaks.

Promote private lessons into shared knowledge

Operational know-how accretes in Claude's private, per-machine auto-memory (~/.claude/projects/<project>/memory/, gitignored). It only reaches teammates when someone notices and copies it into the shared repo. This skill makes that a systematic, proposing sweep instead of a reactive one.

It runs weekly via the "Weekly knowledge-promotion sweep" routine, and you can invoke it any time with /promote-lessons.

The capture-time rule (use this everywhere, not just here)

The test for repo memory vs private memory is:

Would a teammate's Claude need this to avoid taking a wrong action?

If yes → it belongs in the shared repo. The pause state, the selective-unpause-strands-hidden-books gotcha, and real per-book cost all pass. Derek's preferences, the API-key map, and in-flight scratch do not. Bias operational facts into repo memory/ at /lesson time so there's less to sweep.

Procedure

1. Read the private store. Open the index at ~/.claude/projects/<project>/memory/MEMORY.md (for this project the path is ~/.claude/projects/-Users-dereklomas-sourcelibrary/memory/MEMORY.md) and skim the topic files it points to.

2. Classify each entry into one of three buckets:

   • TEAM-TECHNICAL — operational facts a teammate's Claude would need to avoid a wrong action: pipeline state (e.g. the deliberate pause), footguns and gotchas, real costs, data invariants, where-things-live. → candidate for the PUBLIC repo: memory/*.md or .claude/docs/.
   • OPS / BUSINESS — fundraising, contacts, donors, outreach, budgets, PII, secrets, business strategy. → candidate for the PRIVATE repo ~/sourcelibrary-ops ONLY. Never the public repo.
   • PERSONAL / IN-FLIGHT / MACHINE-SPECIFIC — user preferences, key maps, scratch state. → leave private, skip.

3. Dedupe against what's already shared. For each TEAM-TECHNICAL candidate, grep memory/*.md and .claude/docs/*.md. Skip facts already represented.

4. Draft the additions. For genuinely-missing TEAM-TECHNICAL facts, add a concise entry to the most relevant existing memory/ file, or a new .claude/docs/ file when it's a standalone runbook. Group related facts into one PR. For missing OPS/BUSINESS facts, add a note in ~/sourcelibrary-ops.

5. Open DRAFT PRs. Never merge. Never deploy. Derek reviews and merges.

Leak guard (hard constraint)

This repo is public (AGPL). Never put secrets, API keys, PII, contacts, donor/fundraising info, or business strategy into it. When unsure whether something is shareable, route it to the private ops repo or skip it and flag it for review. A false "leave private" is cheap; a leak is not.

Mechanics

• The main checkout stays on main. Do all edits in a worktree: git worktree add -b <branch> .claude/worktrees/<name> main, then copy src/lib/vendor/lamejs-bundle.js into the worktree's src/lib/vendor/ before the first commit (the pre-commit check-imports hook needs it).
• Sign commits off: Signed-off-by: JDerekLomas <[e-mail]> (DCO).
• Open PRs with gh pr create --draft.

Finish

Post a short summary: what was promoted (with draft-PR links), what was routed to ops, and what was left private and why. If nothing qualifies, say so in one line — a quiet week is a valid outcome.