| name | vault-loop |
| description | Design recurring knowledge-base update loops for Obsidian-style vaults, project wikis, second-brain folders, and research notebooks. Use when setting up automated source ingestion, daily reflection, meeting-note processing, health checks, state cursors, runbooks, scheduler prompts, or validation gates for a maintained knowledge system. |
Vault Loop
Use this skill to create a recurring maintenance loop for a knowledge base.
The goal is not to copy a private automation setup. The goal is to create a small, durable loop with state, runbooks, validation, and recovery rules.
Workflow
- Restore context from the user's local agent instructions and shortest recent cache, if they exist.
- Ask only for missing source scope, privacy boundary, runtime, and first lane.
- Define a lane with
lane_id, purpose, source, frequency, state file, run artifacts, writeback targets, validation gate, failure behavior, and notification behavior.
- Create or update a runbook and state file.
- Draft a self-contained scheduler prompt.
- Verify that validation and state advancement rules are explicit.
- Report active, paused, proposed, and blocked lanes.
Required Rules
- Use compensation windows:
last_success_at - overlap_minutes -> trigger_start.
- Do not advance
last_success_at after partial coverage, missing validation, health errors, or unresolved pending queues.
- Keep raw sources immutable when the vault has a raw layer.
- Write durable knowledge to object pages, not only dated run logs.
- Separate knowledge update lanes from notifications and outbound actions.
- Ask before scanning broad personal files, chats, drives, browser history, or cloud accounts.
- Do not send private knowledge into public posts, messages, issues, or tasks without explicit permission.
Artifact Shape
Every recurring lane should have:
- a state file with
last_success_at, overlap_minutes, pending, last_run, and known_blockers;
- a runbook with workflow, recovery steps, and completion rules;
- dated plan/run/review artifacts;
- a validation checklist or deterministic validation script;
- a scheduler prompt that another agent can run without hidden context.
Completion Gate
Only mark a lane setup complete when:
- source scope is explicit;
- privacy boundary is explicit;
- state cursor exists;
- runbook explains blocked recovery;
- scheduler prompt includes startup, source collection, writeback, validation, health, and state advancement rules;
- validation has been run or the remaining blocker is named.
