nightly

name	nightly
agent	none
description	One evidence-gated pass that sequences /dream, /reconcile, /sweep-now, and /digest over your own vault, with a /system-check gate and a ledger-review pass over the measurement layer (Honesty Ledger, Trust Decay, Failure Modes). Stays exactly as human-gated as the legs it calls -- stages, never auto-applies. Skips a leg gracefully when there is nothing to do; every leg that runs leaves an evidence line.
allowed-tools	Read, Write, Edit, Bash
user-invocable	true
triggers	["nightly","night pass","self-maintenance","maintenance pass","dream log review","nightly routine","maintenance sweep","/nightly"]

/nightly -- Nightly Self-Maintenance

[!danger] Same gate as every leg it calls /nightly does not lower the bar any leg already holds itself to. /dream still only proposes -- candidates land in DREAM_LOG.md as status: proposed, the operator still promotes them through /meta-improve. /digest still only stages -- candidates stay status: staged until the operator answers promote/skip/supersede. /sweep-now still only proposes tracker/heat/link fixes for review. /nightly itself writes less than any leg it calls: one line per leg, to its own log, and nothing else.

Sequences the four already-shipped verbs named in the README's Roadmap -- /dream, /reconcile, /sweep-now, /digest -- into one named routine, with a /system-check gate and a ledger-review pass over the measurement layer, so a vault gets a maintenance pass on a cadence instead of only when the operator remembers to run each piece by hand.

Invocation

/nightly
/nightly --skip dream                    # run every leg except one
/nightly --only reconcile,system-check   # run a subset

---

What it sequences

Six legs, run in order. Each leg is gated by the cadence its own skill already documents -- /nightly does not invent a new cadence, it just checks the one that already exists before deciding whether a leg has anything to do.

Leg A -- /dream consolidation

Run the full protocol in skills/dream/SKILL.md (Steps 1-5): load daily notes + runtime state, run the six analysis passes, append any candidates to DREAM_LOG.md with status: proposed.

Cadence gate: skip if the most recent ## Dream Run header in DREAM_LOG.md is less than 7 days old -- matches /dream's own Caddy Enrollment cadence ("Weekly on /close, if last run > 7 days"). Running the same 7-day source window twice a night apart produces near-duplicate candidates, not new signal.

Never: promotes a candidate, edits CLAUDE.md, or touches anything besides appending to DREAM_LOG.md -- exactly per /dream's own "What /dream Never Does" section.

Leg B -- /reconcile

Run the full protocol in skills/reconcile/SKILL.md (Checks A-G against ACTIVE_STATE.json, GOAL_STACK.json, BELIEF_STATE.jsonl, SELF_MODEL.json, ACTIVE_PRIORITIES.md, LESSONS.jsonl, facts.jsonl, SKILL_GAPS.md, DELEGATION_TRACKER.md, BODY_STATE.json). /reconcile is read-only by its own design -- it prints a report and modifies no runtime file.

Cadence gate: skip if ACTIVE_STATE.json's last_reconcile field is less than 7 days old -- matches /reconcile's own Caddy Enrollment cadence.

Never: modifies ACTIVE_STATE.json, GOAL_STACK.json, beliefs, or facts. The report's summary counts (contradictions / stale items / drift / orphans) become this leg's evidence line, since /reconcile itself persists nothing.

Leg C -- /sweep-now

Invoke /sweep-now exactly as skills/sweep-now/SKILL.md specifies: it dispatches Hestia (sonnet) to run all three vault sweeps -- DELEGATION_TRACKER stale items, HEAT_INDEX dormant flips, broken wikilinks -- and appends the result to HESTIA_SWEEP_LOG.md.

Cadence gate: skip if the most recent ### YYYY-MM-DD header in HESTIA_SWEEP_LOG.md is less than 7 days old -- matches Hestia's own default cadence in skills/sweep-now/SKILL.md.

This reuses the shipped /sweep-now verb as-is rather than re-implementing wikilink and tracker scans inline -- it is a real skill in this repo (skills/sweep-now/SKILL.md, skills/sweep-links/SKILL.md, skills/sweep-tracker/SKILL.md), and it is the exact verb the README's own Roadmap line names for this routine.

Leg D -- /digest staging review

A lighter pass than the full /digest skill, deliberately. /digest ends in an interactive promote/skip/supersede exchange with the operator -- there is no operator present during an unattended nightly run to answer it, and /nightly never simulates an answer on the operator's behalf. So this leg only:

1. Reads MEMORY_CANDIDATES.md.
2. Counts rows with status: staged, grouped by type (decision / preference / doctrine / project / person / skill) exactly as /digest's own Step 2 groups them.
3. Records the count and grouping as this leg's evidence line, for the operator to run the real /digest against at their next session.

Cadence gate: skip if there are zero status: staged rows.

Never: promotes, skips, or supersedes a candidate. That stays /digest's job, on the operator's word, per its own "NEVER auto-promote" rule.

Leg E -- /system-check

Run bash daemons/system-check.sh from the vault root, exactly as skills/system-check/SKILL.md specifies. Capture the PASS/FAIL/INFO counts and exit code as this leg's evidence line.

Cadence gate: none -- always runs. It is a read-only smoke test that completes in under 5 seconds per its own doctrine, so there is no cost to running it every night, and a FAIL here is exactly the kind of thing a nightly pass should never skip past silently.

Leg F -- Ledger review (Honesty Ledger / Trust Decay / Failure Modes)

Cross-references the three measurement-layer ledgers /honesty-check, /trust-decay, and /diagnose already populate: vault/memory/HONESTY_LEDGER.md, vault/memory/TRUST_DECAY.md, vault/memory/FAILURE_MODES.md. Scope is new-since-last-/nightly-pass only -- entries dated after the most recent ## Nightly Pass header in NIGHTLY_LOG.md -- read against each ledger's own actual schema, not a new nightly-invented vocabulary.

1. Resolve what's already knowable. For each TRUST_DECAY.md entry still in the ## Open (awaiting outcome) section, and each HONESTY_LEDGER.md entry with **Resolution:** OPEN, check whether unambiguous confirming or disconfirming evidence already exists elsewhere in the vault (a later daily note, a session capsule, or a matching FAILURE_MODES.md entry). If it does, invoke /trust-decay resolve exactly per its own Phase 2 format -- **Resolution (YYYY-MM-DD):** WRONG | PARTIALLY WRONG | CONFIRMED CORRECT plus **Evidence:** citing the source -- which per /honesty-check's own doctrine pairs and updates both ledgers together. If no unambiguous evidence exists, leave the entry open; it counts toward step 2 instead. This never invents a resolution -- it only applies one that is already documented somewhere else in the vault.
2. Count the pressure. Count entries still unresolved after 7+ days: TRUST_DECAY.md Open-section entries, HONESTY_LEDGER.md entries with Resolution: OPEN, and -- since FAILURE_MODES.md has no open/resolved concept of its own -- Pattern frequency tracker patterns that reached count 3+ but have not yet been promoted to [[Common Failure Modes]] doctrine. This total is the pressure signal in the evidence line; a rising count means calibration data is piling up unreviewed.
3. Stage a candidate on a repeat. Scan FAILURE_MODES.md Phase 1 entries new since the last /nightly pass for a Pattern line that now appears 2+ times. If found, stage one candidate into DREAM_LOG.md using /meta-improve's own required candidate schema (status: proposed, change_type, target, proposed_change, rationale, risk, proposed_by: aigent -- noting /nightly leg F as the source in the rationale) -- staging only, exactly as operator-gated as every other /dream candidate. /nightly never runs /meta-improve itself.

This overlaps by design with /dream's own Pass A, which also scans FAILURE_MODES.md for a 2+ repeat -- but Pass A only runs on Leg A's 7-day cadence, so on a night Leg A is skipped, this is the only thing still watching for a fresh repeat between dream passes. It is also distinct from FAILURE_MODES.md's own built-in 3+ promotion path (/skill-audit or /retro walking the Pattern frequency tracker straight to [[Common Failure Modes]] doctrine) -- this leg proposes a DREAM_LOG.md candidate at the lower 2+ bar, through the dream/meta-improve gate, not a direct doctrine promotion.

Cadence gate: always runs; scope is bounded to new-since-last-pass rather than skipped outright, since a zero-new-entries night is the common case and gets recorded as such, not silently passed over.

Never: invokes /trust-decay resolve without citable evidence already in the vault. Never promotes a pattern straight to [[Common Failure Modes]] doctrine -- that stays /skill-audit's job (and /retro's once it ships) at the 3+ threshold. Never applies a staged candidate -- that stays /meta-improve, on the operator's approval.

---

Evidence log

Every leg -- run or skipped -- gets one line appended to $AIGENT_VAULT/memory/runtime/NIGHTLY_LOG.md. This file is /nightly's only direct write, with one exception: leg F stages a DREAM_LOG.md candidate itself when it sees a repeated failure pattern, since the leg that normally owns that file (/dream, leg A) may have been skipped. It does not exist until the first /nightly run creates it; do not pre-seed it.

## Nightly Pass -- {YYYY-MM-DD}
Legs run: {N}/6 | Legs skipped: {N}

- dream: {ran -- N candidates appended to DREAM_LOG.md | skipped -- last run {X}d ago (<7d cadence)}
- reconcile: {ran -- N contradictions, N stale, N drift, N orphans | skipped -- last run {X}d ago (<7d cadence)}
- sweep-now: {ran -- see HESTIA_SWEEP_LOG.md entry {date} | skipped -- last run {X}d ago (<7d cadence)}
- digest: {ran -- N candidates staged across {types} | skipped -- 0 staged}
- system-check: {N PASS / N FAIL / N INFO -- exit {0|1}}
- ledger-review: {N resolved via /trust-decay resolve (cited evidence) / N unresolved 7d+ pressure / N candidate(s) staged to DREAM_LOG.md | no new ledger entries since last pass}

---

Do NOT overwrite -- always append with a new date header, matching DREAM_LOG.md's own convention.

---

What /nightly Never Does

• Does not promote a memory candidate, approve a dream candidate, or apply a sweep fix -- every human gate the legs already have stays exactly where it is.
• Does not write to MEMORY_CANDIDATES.md, HESTIA_SWEEP_LOG.md, TRUST_DECAY.md, HONESTY_LEDGER.md, or any runtime state file directly. Only the leg being invoked writes there, under that leg's own contract. The one exception is leg F's staged DREAM_LOG.md candidate, which leg F writes itself precisely because leg A may not have run.
• Does not resolve a trust-decay or honesty-ledger claim without evidence already documented elsewhere in the vault -- Leg F only invokes /trust-decay resolve where a citation already exists.
• Does not promote a failure pattern straight to [[Common Failure Modes]] doctrine -- that stays /skill-audit's job (and /retro's once it ships) at the 3+ threshold.
• Does not run /meta-improve. Turning a dream candidate into a real change stays a separate, manual step.
• Does not invent a cadence. Every skip decision cites a cadence a sibling skill already documents.
• Its own write surface is NIGHTLY_LOG.md, plus one staged DREAM_LOG.md candidate when leg F sees a repeated failure pattern -- every other write happens because /nightly invoked an already-shipped skill's own action, under that skill's own contract.

---

When to run

• On a schedule -- see docs/nightly-self-maintenance.md for the cron and Windows Task Scheduler recipes.
• Manually, any time, via /nightly.
• Never fires automatically from inside a running session -- there is no hook wiring this to Stop or SessionEnd. It is either typed or scheduled.

---

Caddy Enrollment

Caddy fires this skill when:

• User types /nightly
• Message contains "nightly pass", "self-maintenance", "maintenance pass", "maintenance sweep", or "dream log review"

See [[concepts/Cognitive Architecture Roadmap]] · docs/nightly-self-maintenance.md · skills/dream/SKILL.md · skills/reconcile/SKILL.md · skills/sweep-now/SKILL.md · skills/digest/SKILL.md · skills/system-check/SKILL.md · skills/honesty-check/SKILL.md · skills/trust-decay/SKILL.md · skills/diagnose/SKILL.md