| name | custodian |
| description | Memory system custodian for health checks, validation, and maintenance.
Trigger phrases: "check memory health", "validate memories", "fix broken links",
"update decay", "relocate memories", "audit memories", "memory maintenance",
"custodian", "memory health"
|
| user-invocable | true |
| allowed-tools | ["Bash","Read","Write","Glob","Grep","Task"] |
Memory
Search first: /mnemonic:search {relevant_keywords}
Capture after: /mnemonic:capture {namespace} "{title}"
Run /mnemonic:list --namespaces to see available namespaces from loaded ontologies.
Custodian Skill
Provides custodial services for the mnemonic memory system: auditing, validation, link repair, decay management, relocation, and summarization.
When to Use
- Proactively when session_start reports low health scores or potential duplicates
- On request when user asks about memory health, broken links, or maintenance
- After project renames to relocate memories and update references
- Periodically to keep decay scores current and identify orphaned memories
Architecture
The custodian operates through focused Python modules:
| Module | Responsibility |
|---|
memory_file.py | Parse/validate/update MIF frontmatter |
link_checker.py | Build UUID/slug index, validate links, find orphans |
decay.py | Calculate exponential/linear/step decay, update strength |
relocator.py | Move files + update all cross-references |
validators.py | MIF schema validation, ontology relationship checks |
report.py | Structured findings with markdown/JSON output |
custodian.py | CLI orchestrator dispatching to modules |
Subcommands
audit (default)
Runs all checks in a single pass. This is the recommended entry point.
/mnemonic:custodian audit [--fix] [--dry-run]
Checks performed:
- Frontmatter: Required fields, UUID format, type enum, date format
- Links: Wiki-links resolve to existing memories
- Relationships: Types match MIF built-in or ontology-defined types
- Decay: Recalculates strength values using configured model
- Orphans: Detects memories with no incoming references
relocate
Moves memories when project or org names change:
/mnemonic:custodian relocate <old-path> <new-path> [--dry-run]
- Builds link index across all memory roots
- Updates path references in ALL memory files (not just relocated ones)
- Moves files using
git mv for history preservation
- Cleans up empty directories
validate-links
/mnemonic:custodian validate-links [--fix]
With --fix: broken [[wiki-links]] are replaced with plain text.
decay
/mnemonic:custodian decay [--dry-run]
Updates temporal.decay.currentStrength (or strength) in-place.
Formula: strength * 0.5^(days_since_access / half_life_days)
summarize
/mnemonic:custodian summarize
Identifies compression candidates (>100 lines, >30d old or strength < 0.3).
Delegate actual compression to mnemonic:compression-worker agent.
ensure-bidirectional
/mnemonic:custodian ensure-bidirectional [--fix]
Scans all memory relationships and checks that each has a corresponding inverse
back-reference in the target. For example, if A supersedes B, B should have
SupersededBy (or superseded_by) pointing back to A.
Without --fix: reports missing back-references as warnings.
With --fix: auto-creates the missing inverse relationships.
validate-memories / validate-relationships
Read-only validation. Reports errors without modifying files.
Integration
- Complements gc: GC handles cleanup/archival; custodian handles validation/repair
- Complements memory-curator: Curator handles conflicts/deduplication; custodian handles schema/links/decay
- Uses PathResolver: Centralized path resolution from
lib/paths.py
- Uses compression-worker: Delegates summarization to existing agent
Key Design Decisions
- Non-destructive by default:
--dry-run support on all mutation operations
- Atomic writes: All file modifications use temp file + replace pattern
- Git integration:
--commit flag for committing changes
- Functional modules: Lightweight functions over heavy OOP, matching codebase style
- Single-pass audit: All checks run once per file for efficiency
