distill

name

distill

description

Keep this project's graph lean and trustworthy — merge duplicates, retire stale notes (respecting task hierarchy), resolve contradictions, fix links, resolve entities, flag type drift, re-derive the per-entity timelines, regenerate the index-views, and surface stale tasks. Suggest-only; asks before deleting. Use periodically, before an important piece of work, or when the graph feels noisy. (brainkit's name for Karpathy's "lint".)

distill

Keep the graph sharp — the cleanup that stops it bloating or drifting. Read CLAUDE.md first. Suggest-only: propose a numbered list, get approval before deleting, work in git.

Steps

1. Review. knowledge/ (notes + index.md) and PROJECT.md (golden, locked, task_policy:). Read knowledge/golden/ for context (read, never edit) and knowledge/templates/ (the types) to check notes against — you may propose a type change here too.
2. Propose a numbered list, each with a reason:
   • merge duplicates; retire stale or contradicted notes; resolve contradictions (golden wins — flag, don't silently overwrite);
   • task integrity (§9): a task with open children is not retireable — re-parent the children to the grandparent/initiative first; refuse/repair a parent edge that closes a cycle; surface stale tasks (open past due:, or open with no linked-note activity in a long while);
   • link hygiene — fix broken links; rewrite any stray [[wikilink]] to [label](./note.md); reject any absolute /path;
   • id: integrity (§3) — backfill a missing id: (idempotent, byte-preserving) on any note that has inbound links; relink a dangling link id-first, then by filename;
   • parent re-file (§3a) — when a note's parent: edge changed, propose re-filing it under the new parent's folder (loss-free via its id:); never auto-refile — suggest-only;
   • resolve entities (§6) — vague reference → canonical note, here as well as at ingest; vault-first when present;
   • type drift — a type: not among the written-down types, or a recurring type not yet written down → suggest aligning or pinning it (the user pins);
   • edges on split notes — each child kept its source/attribution edge;
   • flag any work/ deliverable that has drifted from the notes it cites.
3. Re-derive timelines (§8). For each timeline: true entity, rebuild the fenced <!-- BEGIN generated:timeline -->…<!-- END … --> region from the graph and re-stamp it. Detect any hand-edit inside the fence and surface it (suggest-only) so the fact is moved to a real note — never silently clobber it. Touch predicate: attendee or explicitly-linked subject only.
4. Regenerate index-views (§12). Any type: index-view note — the reading-queue (sources below read/processed), a people map, a drift list — is rebuilt from the current graph and re-stamped, never hand-edited. A secondary-axis index.md outline (a non-parent slice, §3a) regenerates the same way.
5. Apply only what's approved — get that approval with the structured AskUserQuestion prompt (the change + options like merge / retire / re-parent / keep; CLAUDE.md §17), not a free-text question. Prefer tightening over erasing; never delete to hit a size target. Preserve frontmatter keys you don't recognize on every rewrite. Never touch knowledge/golden/ or any locked: true file.

Don'ts

Don't delete without approval. Don't retire a task with open children. Don't clobber a hand-edited timeline — surface it. Don't trim golden or locked content. Don't drop a key you didn't write. Don't auto-refile a note when its parent changed — propose it. Don't resolve a contradiction by guessing — surface it when it's not clear-cut.