curate

name	curate
description	Use when user says "curate", "prune", "cleanup the vault", "retire stale notes", "wyczyść bazę". Scores notes for staleness/isolation/dead-links/duplication, writes a triage report, and on confirmation moves retired notes to _graveyard/.

CURATE

When to use

Trigger phrases: "curate", "prune", "cleanup", "retire stale notes", "wyczyść bazę". The user wants a hygiene sweep that proposes (and, on confirmation, executes) reversible retirement of stale/unused content. Recommended cadence: quarterly.

/lint diagnoses; /curate treats. This skill is action-oriented but every mutation is gated on explicit user confirmation. Nothing is ever git rm'd.

Workflow

Phase 1 — Gather (read-only)

1. Read content/_indexes/vault-map.md, catalog.md, graph.md (Navigation Protocol — never grep all of content/). If any index is missing/stale, run /reindex first.
2. For each note collect: frontmatter date and agent-reviewed; git last-touched date via git log -1 --format=%cs -- <path>. Use the most recent of these as the "last touched" date.
3. Parse graph edges with curate_score.parse_graph(open("content/_indexes/graph.md").read()) to get per-note (in_edges, out_edges).

Phase 2 — Score

For every note compute age_days = curate_score.days_since(last_touched, today) then score, reasons = curate_score.score_note(age_days, in_edges, out_edges, dead_link).

• dead_link starts False. Only run live checks on the flagged subset — notes that already have age_points>0 or isolation_points>0, prioritising tool notes. For those, extract the source:/repo URL and run python .claude/skills/curate/scripts/curate_links.py <url> .... A "dead" result sets dead_link=True; "unverified" leaves it False and is noted as unverified in the report (never auto-flag on a network error).
• Detect duplication/superseded: if a newer compiled-note (or newer note with the same topic per catalog summaries) covers the same ground, set has_superseder=True for the older note.
• action = curate_score.recommend_action(score, dead_link, has_superseder).

Phase 3 — Triage report

Write content/_outputs/reports/YYYY-MM-DD_curate.md. Group candidates by recommended action (archive, merge, refresh, keep). For each: note path, score, signals fired (reasons), recommended action, one-line rationale, and any unverified flags. Print summary counts per action to the user. This report is the dry-run; produce it before any mutation.

Phase 4 — Execute (only after explicit user confirmation)

Present the grouped candidates and ask the user to confirm which actions to run. Then, per confirmed note:

• archive → move the file to content/_graveyard/ preserving its folder name as a prefix if needed to avoid collisions; preserve all frontmatter and add archived: YYYY-MM-DD and archived-reason: "<reasons joined>". Repair or stub inbound wikilinks (delegate to /refactor link-repair).
• merge → delegate to /refactor (merge into the superseding note; it repairs wikilinks).
• refresh → delegate to /enhance (re-verify and update the note in place).
• keep → no action.

After mutations, update all three indexes per CLAUDE.md auto-update rules (remove archived notes from counts, catalog entries, graph nodes/edges). Optionally run npx quartz build to confirm the build still succeeds.

Safety

• Mutation is gated on explicit confirmation. Default is the dry-run report.
• Reversible: retirement = move to _graveyard/ (build-excluded). Restore by moving the file back to its topic folder.
• Network errors / blocked status codes are unverified, never dead.
• Never modify .obsidian/, the quartz/ engine dir, or .github/.

See also

• CLAUDE.md "Navigation Protocol" — read on every operation before this workflow.
• /reindex — rebuilds indexes if missing or stale. Run before curate if needed.
• /lint — passive diagnosis. /refactor — merge + wikilink repair. /enhance — refresh.