cortex-lint

name	cortex-lint
description	Audit cortex articles in 10-cortex/ for decay, missing required fields, broken Sources prefixes, and short TL;DR sections. Read-only by default. Invoke with /cortex-lint to surface issues without mutating any file.
user_invocable	true
argument-hint	topic to lint (e.g., ai, career) -- omit to lint all topics

cortex-lint

A health check across 10-cortex/ that flags articles that have decayed, are missing required frontmatter, or violate the cortex article standard. Read-only -- it diagnoses, never edits. To fix issues, hand the report to /cortex-compile or edit the article directly.

Path resolution

Read 00-agentic-OS/paths.json for vaultRoot. All paths below are relative to it.

Scope

With topic argument: lint articles under 10-cortex/<topic>/.

Without topic argument: lint every article under 10-cortex/ except _index.md.

If 10-cortex/ is empty or missing, report: "No cortex articles to lint." and exit.

---

Step 1: Collect articles

For each markdown file under the lint scope (excluding _index.md files):

1. Parse YAML frontmatter.
2. Read the body.

If frontmatter parse fails, record the article as a parse-error finding and skip the rest of its checks.

---

Step 2: Run check rules

Run each rule against every article. Each rule produces zero or more findings.

Rule A: stale -- verified_at over 90 days old

• If verified_at is missing: record missing-verified-at.
• If verified_at parses to a date older than 90 days from today: record stale-verified-at with the age in days.

Rule B: low confidence

• If confidence: low: record low-confidence (informational; not a failure on its own, but surfaces articles that should either be promoted or removed).

Rule C: missing required frontmatter fields

Required: title, description, topic, created, last_compiled, verified_at, confidence, staleness_signal, sources.

For each missing field, record missing-field:<field-name>.

Rule D: TL;DR missing or out-of-range

• If the body has no ## TL;DR heading: record missing-tldr.
• If the TL;DR section word count is under 30 or over 150: record tldr-out-of-range with the word count. (Target is 50-100, with a buffer.)

Rule E: Sources missing or untyped

• If the body has no ## Sources heading: record missing-sources.
• If the Sources section has no list items: record empty-sources.
• For each Sources list item that does NOT start with one of the 5 typed-edge prefixes (supports::, contradicts::, extends::, mentions::, inspired-by::): record untyped-source with the item text.

Rule F: Connections missing

• If the body has no ## Connections heading: record missing-connections.
• If the Connections section has no [[...]] wikilinks: record empty-connections.

Rule G: staleness_signal trigger (best-effort)

staleness_signal is free-form text. Run a best-effort match: if the signal mentions a model name, API version, or product that the LLM knows has changed since verified_at, record staleness-signal-triggered with the matched phrase.

This rule is intentionally fuzzy. The LLM uses its own world knowledge to flag plausible decay; the user makes the final call.

---

Step 3: Group and rank findings

Group findings by article. Within each article, order findings by severity:

Severity	Findings
error	parse-error, missing-tldr, missing-sources, empty-sources, missing-field:title, missing-field:topic
warn	missing-field:* (for any other field), untyped-source, tldr-out-of-range, missing-connections, empty-connections
info	low-confidence, stale-verified-at, staleness-signal-triggered, missing-verified-at

Articles with at least one error sort first. Within a severity bucket, articles with more findings sort first.

---

Step 4: Report

Write the report to stdout. Do NOT write a file -- the report is for the human to read in the chat.

cortex-lint report (YYYY-MM-DD)

Scope: <topic or "all topics">
Articles linted: N
Articles with findings: M

ERRORS (block re-compile until fixed)
  10-cortex/ai/transformers.md
    - missing-tldr
    - missing-field:topic
  10-cortex/career/grade-7.md
    - parse-error: unexpected token at line 4

WARNINGS (fix when you next touch the article)
  10-cortex/ai/rag.md
    - untyped-source: "[[40-raw/youtube/foo.md]] -- pipeline overview"
    - missing-connections

INFO (surface for review, not blocking)
  10-cortex/ai/llm-routing.md
    - stale-verified-at: 137 days old
    - staleness-signal-triggered: signal mentions "GPT-4 turbo" which has been deprecated

Summary: 2 errors, 3 warnings, 2 info
Next: hand the error list to /cortex-compile to refresh those articles, or edit them directly.

If there are zero findings, report:

cortex-lint report (YYYY-MM-DD)

Scope: <topic or "all topics">
Articles linted: N
Articles with findings: 0

All clean. Nothing to fix.

---

What this skill does NOT do

• Does not edit any article. Linting is diagnostic only.
• Does not auto-fix typed-edge prefixes. The rewrite is a /cortex-compile job.
• Does not update verified_at for you. That's a manual decision -- bumping the date is a claim that you re-checked the source.
• Does not crawl 40-raw/. It only inspects 10-cortex/ articles.
• Does not write a report file. Output is chat-only so the user can scan and act.