find

name	find
description	Recall layer for the second brain. Searches across `<workspace.root>/<workspace.resources>/`, `<workspace.projects>/`, `<workspace.archive>/`, `<workspace.areas>/` (HQ workstations, now PARA Areas), and `memory/` for a topic — by filename and content — then merges, ranks, and optionally synthesizes matches with file citations. Use whenever the user asks <assistant.name> to recall existing knowledge before generating new content — phrases like "do I have anything on X", "what do I know about Y", "search my notes for Z", "find research on W", "is there a project for V", "/find <topic>". Trigger broadly on recall language even when the user doesn't say "find" explicitly.
allowed-tools	Read Bash AskUserQuestion

find

Unified recall across the second brain. Default mode: ranked list of matches. Optional: synthesis pass that reads top matches and produces a citations-backed summary.

Before you begin: read the Configuration section in root CLAUDE.md. Path tokens like <workspace.resources> resolve from there — don't hardcode.

Why this exists

Without /find, recall is manual flailing across four organizational locations: Resources (research/reference/meetings), Projects (active), Archive (closed), and Memory (daily logs + curated long-form). /find unifies the search surface into one skill.

Two downstream consumers depend on this:

1. Layer 3 skills (briefing, meeting-prep, etc.) — before generating "what's on your plate today", they need to ask "what existing notes are relevant?". Without a recall primitive, every Layer 3 skill reinvents search.
2. The user, daily — "do I have anything on the Anthropic admin API?" should be one slash command, not a 4-step find | grep | head | cat ritual.

This skill is a port of claudesidian's research-assistant adapted to our paths, frontmatter conventions, and the synthesis-with-citations pattern. The "identify contradictions" guidance from claudesidian is preserved — when sources disagree, surface it explicitly rather than silently pick one.

When to use

Trigger phrases (broad — recall is the pattern, not the literal command):

• "do I have anything on X" / "what do I have on X"
• "find my notes on X" / "search for X"
• "is there research on X" / "any research about X"
• "what did I save about X" / "what do I know about X"
• "is there a project for X" / "any project related to X"
• "what's in my notes on X" / "search my second brain for X"
• "/find X" / "/find"

Do NOT trigger for:

• Content creation — generate directly. Recall is implicit; the user will say "find" if they want it first.
• A specific known filename — Read it directly.
• Web search — use WebSearch / WebFetch.
• Code search inside <workspace.coding>/<repo>/ — that's a per-repo concern; /find doesn't span gitignored code repos.

Process

The skill is interactive. Subagent runs (no AskUserQuestion) extract intent from the invocation prompt and default to synthesize mode if more than 2 matches.

Step 1: Get the topic

If the invocation includes a query (e.g., "/find anthropic admin api" or "what do I have on the Q1 plan?"), extract it. Otherwise ask in plain chat:

"What topic? I'll search resources, projects, archive, and memory."

Keep the original-case query for content grep; build a slugified variant (lowercase, hyphens) for filename matching. Both are used in Step 2.

Step 2: Search across locations (parallel)

The lexical arm (2a) always runs; matches merge and rank in Step 3.

Step 2a: Lexical arm (always runs)

Run these searches in parallel via Bash. All paths come from the Configuration section.

# Filename match — case-insensitive
find "<workspace.root>/<workspace.resources>" \
     "<workspace.root>/<workspace.projects>" \
     "<workspace.root>/<workspace.archive>" \
     "<workspace.root>/<workspace.areas>" \
     -type f \( -iname "*<query>*" -o -iname "*<slug>*" \) 2>/dev/null

find memory -type f -iname "*<query>*" 2>/dev/null

# Content match — prefer ripgrep (fast), fall back to grep -r
if command -v rg >/dev/null 2>&1; then
  rg -l -i --type md "<query>" \
    "<workspace.root>/<workspace.resources>" \
    "<workspace.root>/<workspace.projects>" \
    "<workspace.root>/<workspace.archive>" \
    "<workspace.root>/<workspace.areas>" \
    memory 2>/dev/null
else
  grep -r -l -i --include="*.md" "<query>" \
    "<workspace.root>/<workspace.resources>" \
    "<workspace.root>/<workspace.projects>" \
    "<workspace.root>/<workspace.archive>" \
    "<workspace.root>/<workspace.areas>" \
    memory 2>/dev/null
fi

Collect into a unique set. Skip:

• node_modules/, .git/, _archive-cleanup-*/, _archive-ccv4-*/ — cleanup / vendor noise
• Files larger than 5 MB — likely binaries
• <workspace.root>/<workspace.coding>/ — out of scope (gitignored, per-repo concern)

Step 3: Rank matches

For each unique file, compute a weight:

Signal	Weight
Filename contains query (case-insensitive)	+3
Each content occurrence (cap at 5 per file)	+1
mtime within last 30 days	+1
Path contains <workspace.projects>/	+2
Path contains memory/	+1
Path contains <workspace.archive>/	-1

Higher weight = more likely to be what the user wanted. Sort descending, cap displayed list at 15 (the rest are surfaced as a count: "+ N more matches truncated").

Step 4: Show ranked list

Found N matches for "<query>":

  📁 <relative-path>     <YYYY-MM-DD>   <size>   <one-line excerpt>
  📁 <relative-path>     <YYYY-MM-DD>   <size>   <one-line excerpt>
  ...

Breakdown: K resources · L projects · M archive · P memory

The excerpt is the first line containing the query (case-insensitive content match), or the first non-empty line if filename-only match. Trim to ~80 chars.

Use <relative-path> from the workspace root (e.g., workspace/4-Resources/research/2026-04-anthropic-admin-research/findings.md) so the user can copy and Read directly.

If breakdown shows zero in resources but matches in archive, flag it: "Note: only archived matches — nothing live."

Step 5: Ask what next

AskUserQuestion:

• synthesize — read top 5 matches, produce a structured summary with citations
• read — read a specific match in full (next chat message: "which one? say the number or path")
• done — show list only, exit

Skip the question and default to synthesize when:

• Only 1-2 matches found (just synthesize directly — no point asking)
• Subagent context (no AskUserQuestion) — pre-extract from invocation prompt

Step 6: Synthesize (if chosen)

Read top 5 matches in parallel via the Read tool. Then produce:

## Synthesis: "<query>"

### Key points
- <bullet>  *(source: <relative-path>)*
- <bullet>  *(source: <relative-path>)*

### Connections
- <X relates to Y because Z>  *(sources: <a>, <b>)*

### Open questions / contradictions
- <surface explicitly if sources disagree, e.g. "file A says X happens monthly; file B says weekly">

### Where to dig deeper
- `<relative-path>` — <one sentence on why this is the richest source>

Citation rule: every factual claim must end with *(source: <path>)*. If sources contradict, surface it under "Open questions / contradictions" — don't silently pick one. This is the claudesidian discipline: "Don't ignore contradictions — they're often where insights live."

Step 7: Empty result handling

If zero matches:

No matches for "<query>" across the second brain.

You might want to:
- Start a research note:  /save-resource → research → topic="<query>"
- Start a project:        /new-project   (if this is becoming work)
- Try a related term:     <suggest 1-2 variants based on the query>

The "related term" suggestions should be obvious word-stem variants (e.g., "anthropic admin api" → "anthropic API", "claude admin").

Step 8: Stop

Don't auto-update any index, don't auto-commit, don't propose unrelated next actions. Recall is read-only by design.

Failure modes

Symptom	Cause	Fix
Neither rg nor grep -r available	Truly bare system	Surface error: "Need rg or grep for content search. Install via brew install ripgrep."
Too many matches (>50)	Generic term ("AI", "the")	Truncate to top 15, suggest narrowing: "Query is broad — try <workspace.projects>/<query> or a more specific phrase"
All matches in archive	Topic is dormant	Surface this — "Note: only archived matches — nothing live." — then offer to dig in or start fresh
File >5MB matched	Binary or huge dump	Skip silently (rank weight 0)
AskUserQuestion unavailable	Subagent context	Default to synthesize mode if matches > 0; if 0, return the empty-result message
Configuration values missing	Fresh fork	Error: "Configuration section in root CLAUDE.md not populated. Run /bootstrap (TBD) or fill it in manually first."
Topic slugifies to empty	All special chars	Re-prompt: "That topic didn't slugify cleanly — try one with letters/numbers"

Output format

Default (list only): the ranked-list block from Step 4, ending with the breakdown line.

Synthesize mode: the markdown block from Step 6 with citations on every claim.

Empty: the empty-result block from Step 7.

These three formats are stable — /briefing and other Layer 3 skills will parse them by looking for ## Synthesis: headers and *(source: ...)* citation patterns.