creation-vault-freshness-guard

---

name: creation-vault-freshness-guard description: Use whenever loading vault context, writing to the vault, ingesting captures, or starting a work session. Detects stale/conflicting notes, downgrades unverified old information, and annotates context with freshness labels. Guarded mode: warns and labels, never blocks (except completion claims lacking repo evidence).

Creation Vault Freshness Guard

Run obsx creation freshness-audit --json and obsx creation status --json before relying on any vault fact. For each fact, attach its authority_level. Treat memory or notes older than 7 days, or any item whose source_commit no longer matches repo HEAD, as stale_needs_review and verify against git before acting. Refuse to mark a backlog item done without source_commit or source_pr evidence. Emit a "Stale context warnings" section in every startup context pack. Guarded mode: warn and label; do not block work (the only hard block is unverified completion).

When to invoke

• At the start of any agent session (SessionStart hook).
• Before writing or updating any vault note that references a repo state.
• After a git pull or branch switch that may advance repo_head.
• When loading the context pack for a planning or implementation session.

Authority hierarchy (highest to lowest)

1. fresh_user_instruction -- Mario said it explicitly in the current session.
2. repo_grounded -- derived from a git commit/PR in the session.
3. verified_current -- independently confirmed by the agent during the session.
4. agent_reported_unverified -- agent asserted without verification.
5. stale_needs_review -- age or commit drift triggered downgrade.
6. conflicting -- two sources disagree; requires explicit resolution.
7. deprecated -- superseded by a newer record.

Freshness rules

Policy	Stale when
repo-commit	source_commit differs from current repo_head
ttl	now_iso > valid_until
manual	Never auto-stale (requires explicit label change)

Completion hard-gate

A backlog item claiming done or pr_merged status must supply source_commit or source_pr evidence. Without it, can_complete() returns (False, "completion requires repo evidence") and the claim is rejected.

CLI commands

# Read-only status (active session, event count, stale warnings)
obsx creation status --json

# Full freshness audit of Backlog/**/*.md
obsx creation freshness-audit --json

# Start a session (dry-run by default)
obsx creation sync start --repo mcmc-erp --branch main [--allow-write]

# Checkpoint a session (dry-run by default)
obsx creation sync checkpoint --session-id ses_XXX --summary "..." [--allow-write]

# End a session (dry-run by default)
obsx creation sync end --session-id ses_XXX --report "..." [--allow-write]

Output format

All commands return the canonical JSON envelope:

{
  "ok": true,
  "command": "creation status",
  "vault": "/path/to/vault",
  "duration_ms": 12,
  "data": { ... }
}