ingest

name	ingest
description	Pull the content of a local file or a web page (and its assets) into Memex as a note — verbatim or summarized. Use when the user says 'ingest this file/page', 'save this URL to memory', 'add this document to Memex', or hands you a path or link to capture. This stores the raw content as a note (extraction runs server-side) — NOT a gated how-to case (`/extract-case`), and NOT a single shape-routed fact (`/remember`).
argument-hint	[path | url] [verbatim|summary]

/ingest — Capture a file or web page into Memex

You have been invoked via the /ingest slash command.

Retrieve the content of what $ARGUMENTS points at (plus any assets), then store it via memex_add_note. The server ingests and extracts memory units from the note as normal, so the content becomes searchable memory — this is a real ingest, not a dead note.

Distinct from neighbours: /extract-case is gated and only files reusable how-to cases; /remember routes a single item by shape. /ingest stores a document's raw content (verbatim or summarized) as a note, assets attached.

1. Resolve the input and retrieve content

$ARGUMENTS names a path or URL (and optionally a verbatim/summary mode token).

• A URL → fetch the page with WebFetch to get its text/markdown. If the page has binary assets you want to keep (images, PDFs, diagrams), WebFetch cannot return them — download them with a short Bash command (curl -fsSL <asset-url> -o /tmp/<name> or wget) to local paths, and collect those absolute paths. Confirm each download actually produced a non-empty file before listing it — a missing/failed asset is dropped silently server-side, not reported back.
• A local file → read it with Read (read images/PDFs directly too); collect their absolute paths as assets.
• A local directory → read the relevant files; ingest as one note (or ask if it should be several).
• Empty $ARGUMENTS → ask which file or URL to ingest.

2. Choose verbatim vs summarized

• Honor an explicit verbatim or summary token in $ARGUMENTS.
• Otherwise default by size: short content → verbatim; long content → summarize to the key insight (the markdown_content field is meant to be concise). Verbatim storage of a large document works but is the non-default path — prefer a faithful summary unless the user asked for verbatim.

3. Store via memex_add_note

memex_add_note(
  title=<concise title>,
  markdown_content=<verbatim content or summary>,
  description=<one-sentence summary>,
  author="claude-code",
  tags=["ingest", <1-3 topic tags>],
  supporting_files=[<absolute paths of any assets>],
)

• The PreToolUse hook auto-injects ambient tags and defaults background=true / vault_id — don't hand-set those.
• Set note_key only if the note should be updatable later via memex_append_note.

4. Report

State the note title, the vault, whether it was stored verbatim or summarized, and which assets were attached.

Note on scrape fidelity

This path uses WebFetch/Read for retrieval. For heavyweight document ingestion the CLI's server-side scrape pipeline (memex note add --url <url> / --file <path>, which uses trafilatura) can extract page content more faithfully — mention it if the page scraped poorly. Extraction into memory units runs either way.