vault-tree

A depth-limited directory listing. The vault’s PARA structure + _index.md pattern means you can infer what lives where from folder names alone — that’s the whole bet this skill makes. It is structure, not content.

When to use

• Before process-inbox — so you know the current PARA shape before deciding where an inbox item routes.
• Before reconcile — one glance at the folder map frames the week’s touched paths (“ah, most of the changes were in 2_Areas/Photography/”).
• When the user asks for an overview — “what’s in the vault”, “how is this organized”, “show me the structure”.
• When a routing or naming decision is ambiguous — seeing the sibling folders usually resolves it.
• When onboarding a new agent session and the warmup digest isn’t enough structural context.

When NOT to use

• Finding a specific file — use Glob (**/Photography*.md) or Grep. Tree is for shape, not search.
• Reading content — use Read once you know the path.
• Getting recent activity — use recent-changes. Tree shows the static structure; it does not show what changed.

How

Default — top-level + one layer, excluding heavy/hidden subtrees:

find . -maxdepth 2 -type d \
  -not -path '*/\.*' \
  -not -path './node_modules*' \
  | sort

Drill into a specific subtree when needed (e.g., inspecting Photography’s layout):

find 2_Areas/Photography -maxdepth 3 -type d | sort

If tree is installed locally, it’s equivalent and prettier:

tree -d -L 2 -I '.git|.obsidian|node_modules|.agents|.claude'

Heavy subtrees — skip by default

These directories contain thousands of leaves and drown the output. Stay at depth 2 for them, or skip entirely unless the task demands drilling in:

• 3_Resources/Japanese/ — ~3900 vocab helpers
• 2_Areas/Japanese/ — ~200 notes
• 5_Archive/ — old content
• 6_Private/ — personal/copyrighted/work-confidential. Structure is inspectable; contents need user approval.

To inspect these deliberately, invoke find <path> -maxdepth N -type d with intent.

Output shape

A flat sorted list of directory paths. The depth-2 default gives ~30–60 lines total — one screen, LLM-friendly. Filenames are not included; that’s what Glob is for.

Rules

• Depth 2 by default. Go deeper only when the task needs it.
• Read-only. This skill never edits files.
• Don’t list files. Directories only. If you need files, you’re reaching for the wrong tool.