reconcile

The weekly operation of the three-op protocol. Scoped to the diff, not the corpus. A full-vault health check doesn’t work at this vault’s size (~6k files); a bounded check of what actually changed does.

When to use

• User runs /reconcile.
• Weekly scheduled routine fires (Sunday default).
• User says “reconcile the week”, “check the recent changes”, “what should I do with this week’s work”.

What this is NOT

• Not an orphan scan. Orphans are a whole-corpus check that doesn’t scale here.
• Not a whole-vault broken-link sweep. Only links inside touched pages are checked.
• Not a mechanical-fix pass. That’s rare enough to handle case-by-case; not worth a weekly pipeline.

The scope discipline is the whole point. If you catch yourself reaching outside the touched-set, stop.

Workflow

1. Frame the week

1. Run vault-tree (depth 2) for structural orientation.
2. Run recent-changes (default 7 days). This is the ground truth for scope.

The touched-set is: files marked A, M, or R in recent-changes. Deletions are noted but don’t drive further checks (the page is gone).

2. Per-page integration check — touched-set only

For each new or substantially-edited page:

• Does it link out? A page with zero outbound wikilinks is usually under-integrated. Propose 1–3 concrete wikilinks to existing pages where the connection is clear.
• Does it fit its folder? Quick PARA sanity check. A project note that landed in 3_Resources/ is a mis-route; surface it.
• Does it collide with another touched page? Two pages created the same week covering the same topic are a consolidation candidate.
• Does it mention terms that exist as notes but aren’t wikilinked? Only check within the touched page — do not scan the corpus for incoming references to it.
• Is it correctly classified for privacy? Check if the note contains personal/introspective content, professional/work-confidential material, or confidential information. If it does and it’s not in 6_Private/ and doesn’t have draft: true, flag it as a privacy mis-route. See Privacy Classification.

3. Move / rename impact

For each R entry:

• Verify inbound wikilinks still resolve. Obsidian resolves by title, so renames within the same title usually work; path-qualified links ([[2_Areas/Old Path|Old Path]]) break and need rewriting.
• Surface any broken inbound refs as a concrete fix list in the report.

4. Promotion & merge candidates

• Promotion: did this week’s edits push an existing page over the canon bar (≥10 inbound, substantial, synthesized, stable-ish)? If yes, propose /crystallize.
• Merge: are two touched pages near-duplicates or heavy overlap? If yes, propose /consolidate.

Do not act. reconcile only proposes; the skills it routes to have their own approval flow.

5. Synthesis — the generative part

This is the piece that makes reconcile more than a weekly diff viewer:

• Topic clustering. Group the week’s new pages by topic. If ≥3 pages circle one concept, propose a concept / index page that threads them together.
• Answered questions. Read the tail of 7_Agent/questions.md (entries since last reconcile). Cross-check each against the week’s new content. If a question has been answered, note it so the user can prune.
• Spawned questions. New pages often raise questions they don’t answer. Capture those — either as log-question entries or as report bullets.

Keep this section concrete: a proposal is “create Concept X threading A B C”, not “think about X more”.

6. Write report

Write to 7_Agent/reconcile/<YYYY-Www>-reconcile.md:

---
created: YYYY-MM-DD
tags: [agent, reconcile, report]
draft: true
---
 
# Reconcile report — Week YYYY-Www
 
Scope: last 7 days (YYYY-MM-DD → YYYY-MM-DD). N touched pages across <folders>.
 
## Overview
<2–3 sentences: what did the week touch? Any refactors? Any noticeable concentration in one PARA area?>
 
## Integration
- [[Page A]] — new in 2_Areas/X/. Links: [[Y]]. Suggested cross-refs: [[Z]], [[W]].
- [[Page B]] — edits this week but no outbound links. Under-integrated; candidates: [[Y]].
 
## Consolidation candidates
- [[Page A]] + [[Page B]] — both new this week, cover <topic>. Run `/consolidate` if agreed.
 
## Promotion candidates
- [[Page C]] — edits this week pushed it over the bar (N inbound, substantial, synthesized). Run `/crystallize` if agreed.
 
## Privacy mis-routes
- [[Page E]] — contains work-confidential content but is in `2_Areas/`. Move to `6_Private/` or add `draft: true`.
 
## Moves / renames
- `2_Areas/Old.md` → `2_Areas/New.md`. Inbound wikilinks: M (all resolve by title / K need rewriting).
 
## Synthesis
- Three pages this week orbit <topic>: [[A]], [[B]], [[C]]. Consider creating [[Topic]] as a concept page.
 
## Questions
- Answered this week: [[questions.md]] line N — "<question>" → answered by [[Page D]].
- Raised this week: "<new question>" — logged via `log-question`.

Empty sections still show the heading + “none” — it’s an explicit null, not a silent omission.

7. Append to log

Append to log:

## [YYYY-MM-DD] reconcile | Week YYYY-Www
- Touched pages: N
- Substantive items surfaced: K (see [[7_Agent/reconcile/YYYY-Www-reconcile]])
- Notes: <one line on anything unusual this week>

8. Notify

Append one action item to notifications under ## Items:

- [ ] YYYY-MM-DD — action: Walk through week YYYY-Www reconcile findings (K items) → [[7_Agent/reconcile/YYYY-Www-reconcile]]

One item per run. Skip if the report has zero substantive items.

Rules

• Touched-set only. If a check would require scanning pages outside the 7-day window, it doesn’t belong in reconcile. Refactor that check out or drop it.
• Propose, don’t apply. Merges and promotions route through consolidate / crystallize, which have their own approval flows. Reconcile writes a report.
• Never delete pages. Even a clearly-wrong routing is a proposal.
• Report is a draft. draft: true keeps it out of Quartz.
• One report per ISO week. If the skill is invoked twice in the same week, overwrite rather than create a second report for that week.
• Cheap to re-run. Everything’s bounded by the 7-day diff, so re-running is fine.

Blocked cases

• Empty diff. No file changes in the window → write a minimal report noting “no activity”, skip the notification, log the run.
• Massive refactor week. If recent-changes reports hundreds of renames (e.g., a sweeping folder reorganization), the integration check is noisy and the synthesis section is more useful than the per-page section. Say so in the Overview and focus on the reorganization’s coherence instead.

Verification

• 7_Agent/reconcile/<YYYY-Www>-reconcile.md exists with all sections populated (or “none”).
• log has a new entry for the run.
• notifications has a new action item pointing at the report (unless the report had zero substantive items).
• git diff shows only the report + log + notification — no substantive page edits from reconcile itself.