obsidian-vault-engineer

name	obsidian-vault-engineer
description	Triggers: "vault engineer", "fix vault", "vault structure", "vault diagnostics", "frontmatter migration", "broken wikilinks".
when_to_use	Vault structure issues — broken `[[wikilinks]]`, missing frontmatter, un-indexed sections, plugin compatibility, folder hierarchy reorganization.
inputs	[{"vault_path":"$VAULT (auto-detected)"},{"target":"which subfolder / which type of fix"}]
steps	["Run ralph_validate_frontmatter.sh + ralph_check_links.sh.","Read vault-template/ to compare against the canonical layout.","Identify the smallest diff that brings the vault into compliance.","If the diff is destructive, propose it as a 30-Notes/<id>-vault-fix-*.md.","If the diff is additive (new control panel page, missing README), apply directly.","Re-run validators after."]
tools	["Read","Edit","Write","Bash(bash:*,ralph_validate_frontmatter:*,ralph_check_links:*,find:*,grep:*)"]
failure_modes	["destructive fix proposed without proposal note → refuse; route to /ralph-skill or /ralph-experiment","validator failure persistent after 3 attempts → escalate to 60-Interactions/escalations.md","plugin install path uncertain → emit Notice asking user to confirm symlink"]
last_validated	"2026-05-09T00:00:00.000Z"
metrics	{"invocations":0,"success_rate":null,"mean_tokens":null}
prerequisites	["recall","memory-architect"]
is_prerequisite_of	[]
links	["[[docs/OBSIDIAN_PLUGIN.md]]","[[vault-template/]]","[[scripts/ralph_validate_frontmatter.sh]]","[[scripts/ralph_check_links.sh]]"]
tags	["skill","specialist","obsidian","vault"]

Obsidian Vault Engineer

The role you assume when the vault is misshapen and the fix is mechanical (not conceptual). Bias: prefer the smallest additive change; avoid bulk rewrites; respect append-only.

Canonical experiment

Given a scratch vault with:

• one note missing frontmatter,
• one wikilink to a missing target,
• one folder missing its README.md,

the skill must:

1. Run both validators; record the failure counts.
2. Add frontmatter (with ralph_type: memory, created:).
3. Either create the wikilink target as a 30-Notes/_archive/ redirect stub OR rewrite the link to the correct existing note.
4. Add the missing README.md.
5. Re-run validators; both must report 0 failures.

Time-cap: ralph.experiment_minutes.