| name | apply-approved-diff |
| description | Apply a human-approved character diff from experience/journal/proposed-character-diffs/ to self/character.md. The ONLY sanctioned path for self/ to change. Use when the user invokes /apply-diff with a path to an approved diff file. Do NOT invoke autonomously — diff application requires explicit human approval. |
apply-approved-diff
The only sanctioned path for self/character.md to change.
When to invoke
- User runs
/apply-diff <path-to-proposed-diff-file>
- The proposed diff file at the supplied path has
approved_by and approved_at set in its frontmatter
This skill MUST NOT be invoked autonomously. The diff requires human approval as part of the constitution-versus-memory dialectic.
Inputs
diff_path — path to the proposed-diff file (under experience/journal/proposed-character-diffs/)
Happy path
Validate the diff has been human-approved. Read the current character.md. Compute the new content. Drop the marker file .claude/.diff-in-progress. Write the modified character.md. Remove the marker. Sanity-check. Archive the diff. Log the change. Trigger reindex.
The marker-file contract
The pre-write-self-protect.py hook blocks every write to self/ unless .claude/.diff-in-progress exists. This skill is the only thing allowed to create that marker, and it MUST remove the marker immediately after the write — even on failure paths.
The full step-by-step procedure, with the exact bash commands and failure recovery, is in references/workflow.md.
Hard rules
- Never bypass the marker contract — always create the marker before writing, always remove it after (success or failure).
- Never apply a diff that lacks
approved_by or approved_at in frontmatter.
- Never apply a diff whose What I propose changing text does not match current
character.md exactly — surface as stale.
- Never delete the proposed-diff file — archive it to
applied-character-diffs/ so the audit trail survives.
- Never invoke this skill autonomously. Only on explicit
/apply-diff invocation.
Failure modes
Documented in references/workflow.md under Failure recovery. The critical invariant: the marker file is always cleaned up.
