daily-reflect

name	daily-reflect
description	Produce a structured, retrievable daily reflection over the last 24h of Memex activity. Persistence is mandatory — the reflection note must exist every day, even when delivery is silent.
version	1.1.0
metadata	{"hermes":{"tags":["knowledge","reflection","memex","daily"],"category":"knowledge"}}

When to Use

Scheduled daily (midnight UTC). Also invoke manually when asked to produce "today's reflection" or "what did we learn yesterday."

Configuration

• KV namespace: app:hermes:reflection:*
• Use the native Memex plugin tools (memex_*). Do not shell out to curl.
• Reflection author: hermes-reflect (distinct from plain hermes so reflections are filterable).

Critical Rules

• Persistence is mandatory. Every run MUST produce a saved reflection note and a KV pointer, even when the day was thin. [SILENT] is a delivery decision, not a skip-the-work decision.
• Use a deterministic title. Daily Reflection — YYYY-MM-DD (UTC date of the run). Future sessions rely on this pattern for fallback search.
• Use a deterministic note_key. hermes:reflection:YYYY-MM-DD. Guarantees idempotency if the cron runs twice for the same day.
• NEVER write post-mortem notes to Memex. Report errors via a subagent with the /post-mortem skill.

Procedure

Phase 1: Load State

1. Compute today's UTC date as YYYY-MM-DD (call it TODAY) and the ISO timestamp 24h ago (call it SINCE).
2. Check the last reflection id for idempotency with memex_kv_get(key="app:hermes:reflection:latest"). If the value points at a note whose title is Daily Reflection — $TODAY, skip to Phase 5. Do not write a duplicate.

Phase 2: Fetch Recent Notes

1. memex_recent_notes(limit=30, since=$SINCE, date_field="created_at") — the date_field="created_at" is important: we want ingest time, not authored/publish_date.
2. For each returned note collect id, title, author, tags, description. Metadata is enough for reflection — do not fetch full bodies unless a description is missing and the title is ambiguous (memex_read_note only for notes under 500 tokens; otherwise memex_get_page_indices + memex_get_nodes).
3. Exclude notes authored by hermes-reflect (do not reflect on your own output).

Phase 3: Reflect

Read across the fetched notes and identify:

• Themes — topics that show up more than once, or that thread across otherwise-unrelated notes.
• Connections — pairs/triples of notes from different vaults or authors that speak to the same underlying thing.
• Contradictions & open questions — claims that conflict, or questions raised in the notes that were not resolved.
• Next actions — concrete follow-ups implied by the day's notes (a fix to land, a question to answer, a decision to make).

If a section has genuinely nothing, write _none observed_ for that section. Do not fabricate.

Phase 4: Persist (MANDATORY)

1. Build the note body as clean markdown with four H2 sections in this exact order:

   • ## Themes
   • ## Connections
   • ## Contradictions & open questions
   • ## Next actions

   Keep each section short — bullet list preferred, no section over ~150 tokens.

2. Create the note via memex_retain:

   memex_retain(
     title="Daily Reflection — $TODAY",
     author="hermes-reflect",
     description="Structured daily reflection over the 24h ending $TODAY UTC.",
     tags=["daily-reflection", "conclusion", "hermes-reflect"],
     markdown_content=$BODY_MARKDOWN,
     vault_id="global",
     note_key="hermes:reflection:$TODAY",
     background=True
   )
   

   Capture the returned note id into NOTE_ID.

3. Write the KV pointer so future sessions can fetch today's reflection in one hop:

   memex_kv_write(key="app:hermes:reflection:latest", value=$NOTE_ID)
   

4. Write the run timestamp:

   memex_kv_write(key="app:hermes:reflection:last_run", value=<ISO timestamp now>)
   

If any of these three writes fails, DO NOT reply [SILENT]. Include the error in your Telegram reply and escalate via a subagent with the /post-mortem skill.

Phase 5: Self-check

Confirm the new note is retrievable via semantic search — this is the exact failure mode we are guarding against:

memex_recall(query="today daily reflection conclusions", limit=5)

Find the rank of $NOTE_ID in the results (1-indexed). If it is not in the top 3, remember the rank and surface it in the reply.

Phase 6: Deliver

Telegram reply, 4–6 lines:

• One line summary per section (Themes / Connections / Contradictions / Next actions).
• The note id: note: $NOTE_ID.
• If the self-check rank was > 3 or not found: append ⚠️ retrieval check failed (rank=N) on its own line.

You may reply exactly [SILENT] ONLY when ALL of the following hold:

• Phase 4 steps 2, 3, 4 all succeeded.
• Every section in the note body is _none observed_.
• The self-check in Phase 5 found the note in the top 3.

Never combine [SILENT] with content.

Error Handling

• Phase 2 fetch fails: abort the run, escalate via /post-mortem. Do not fabricate content.
• Phase 4 memex_retain fails: retry once after 5s. If still failing, abort and escalate.
• Phase 4 KV write fails: the note exists but the pointer doesn't — escalate via /post-mortem and still deliver the note id in the Telegram reply.
• Phase 5 memex_recall fails: treat as "retrieval check failed" and surface in the reply; do not abort.

Pitfalls

• Do not reflect on hermes-reflect-authored notes — you will compound yesterday's conclusions into today's.
• Do not widen the tag list over time. The tag set ["daily-reflection","conclusion","hermes-reflect"] is what sorting-hat and future retrievals key on.
• note_key must be hermes:reflection:$TODAY exactly — it is the idempotency guard for same-day reruns.
• Do not write the session transcript as the reflection. The reflection is a distilled artifact, not a dump of tool calls.