pattern-manage

name	pattern-manage
description	AgentDB pattern lifecycle management: list, get, delete, deprecate, update, stats, search, duplicates. Use when cleaning up stale patterns, removing deprecated entries, finding duplicates, or auditing pattern health. Workaround for missing MCP delete/update tools (GH Issue #42).

Pattern Manage - AgentDB Pattern Lifecycle

What This Skill Does

Provides CRUD operations on AgentDB's reasoning_patterns table that are missing from the MCP tool surface. AgentDB exposes agentdb_pattern_store (create) and agentdb_pattern_search (read) via MCP, but has no delete, update, or deprecate tools despite the controller code existing (GH Issue #42).

This skill wraps direct SQLite operations via agentdb's bundled sql.js.

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Quick Reference

All commands use the helper script at scripts/pattern-manage.js:

# List all patterns
node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js list

# Filter by category
node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js list --type adr:

# Get full details for a pattern
node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js get 17

# Delete patterns (cascades to embeddings)
node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js delete 17 18 19

# Soft-delete: set success_rate=0 so pattern ranks last in searches
node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js deprecate 29 32

# Update specific fields
node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js update 5 --success_rate 0.8
node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js update 5 --tags '["updated","v2"]'
node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js update 5 --task_type "procedure:add-stream-v2"

# Category breakdown + health checks
node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js stats

# Text search (not semantic — searches task_type and approach text)
node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js search "domain adapter"

# Find patterns sharing the same task_type
node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js duplicates

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Commands

list

List all patterns with ID, success rate, uses, type, and preview.

node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js list
node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js list --type adr:ops-007
node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js list --min-rate 0.9
node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js list --type procedure: --min-rate 0.8

get

Show full details for a single pattern including complete approach text.

node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js get 17

delete

Hard delete patterns. Cascade-deletes associated embeddings via FK constraint.

node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js delete 17
node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js delete 17 18 19 20

Use when: Pattern is completely wrong, references deleted code, or is a duplicate that should not exist.

deprecate

Soft delete — sets success_rate=0 and avg_reward=0. Pattern still exists but ranks last in similarity searches.

node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js deprecate 29
node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js deprecate 29 32

Use when: Pattern is outdated but you want to keep it as a historical record. Prefer this over hard delete when the pattern was once valid.

update

Update specific fields on a pattern.

# Fix success rate
node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js update 5 --success_rate 0.8

# Fix category
node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js update 5 --task_type "procedure:add-stream-v2"

# Update tags
node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js update 5 --tags '["updated","v2","streams"]'

# Rewrite approach text
node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js update 5 --approach "New description..."

# Multiple fields at once
node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js update 5 --success_rate 0.95 --tags '["proven"]'

Updatable fields: task_type, approach, success_rate, tags, metadata, uses, avg_reward

stats

Category breakdown, embedding coverage, health checks.

node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js stats

Reports:

• Total patterns, episodes, embeddings, RL sessions, causal edges
• Patterns grouped by category prefix with average success rate
• Health checks: deprecated count, missing embeddings, duplicate task_types

search

Text search across task_type and approach columns. This is a SQL LIKE search, not semantic — use get-pattern for semantic similarity search.

node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js search "domain adapter"
node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js search ops-007

duplicates

Find patterns that share the same task_type. Useful for cleanup after multiple agents stored overlapping patterns.

node .claude/skills/pattern-manage/scripts/pattern-manage.js duplicates

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When to Use Each Operation

Situation	Command	Why
Pattern references deleted code paths	delete	Hard remove — wrong information is worse than none
Pattern superseded by v2	deprecate old, keep new	Historical record, but won't pollute searches
Multiple patterns with same task_type	duplicates then delete extras	Clean up agent-created duplication
Pattern success rate needs correction	update --success_rate	Reflect actual experience
Auditing pattern health	stats	Find missing embeddings, duplicates, deprecated
Finding patterns by keyword	search	Quick text lookup when you know the term
Full pattern review	list then get <id>	Inspect before deciding to delete/deprecate

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Relationship to Other Skills

Skill	Operation	Tool
/save-pattern	Create	MCP agentdb_pattern_store
/get-pattern	Read (semantic search)	MCP agentdb_pattern_search
/reflexion	Feedback on patterns	MCP reflexion_store
/pattern-manage	Update, Delete, Deprecate, Stats	Direct SQLite (this skill)

Together these four skills provide full CRUD + feedback on the patterns table.

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Database Details

• Table: reasoning_patterns (not patterns — the MCP tools abstract this)
• Embeddings: pattern_embeddings (FK cascade from reasoning_patterns.id)
• DB path: Auto-detected by walking up from cwd; override with AGENTDB_PATH env var
• Engine: sql.js (WASM) bundled with agentdb — no native sqlite3 needed
• FK enforcement: Script runs PRAGMA foreign_keys = ON before every operation

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Troubleshooting

"Cannot find sql.js"

agentdb must be installed globally: npm i -g agentdb

"agentdb.db not found"

Run from the project root, or set AGENTDB_PATH=/path/to/agentdb.db

Delete didn't remove embeddings

Verify FK cascade is working: node -e "..." with PRAGMA foreign_keys = ON. The script does this automatically, but if you used raw SQL elsewhere, FKs are off by default in SQLite.

Pattern still appears in MCP searches after delete

The MCP server may cache results. Restart the agentdb MCP server to clear its in-memory HNSW index.