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name: vault-context description: Understand vault organization, weekly writing pipeline (Mon-Sun stages), file conventions, and Make commands. Use when working with vault files, daily notes, blog posts, projects, or referencing vault structure and workflows.

Vault Context

This skill provides comprehensive awareness of the vault's structure, workflows, and conventions.

Directory Structure

vault/
├── blog/          # Published essays and blog posts (with YAML frontmatter)
├── daily/         # Daily journal (YYYY/MM/YYYY-MM-DD.md format)
├── letters/       # Formal correspondence
├── projects/      # Active work (civil-war-history, game-theory, etc.)
├── reference/     # Evergreen guides and frameworks
├── archive/       # Completed work (mirrors main structure)
├── templates/     # Scaffolding for new content
└── scripts/       # Bash automation

House Rulebook Principles

1. Everything starts in /vault as .md
2. Filenames are utilitarian; titles live inside files
3. One file per idea
4. When in doubt, append — don't delete
5. Source of truth = Markdown. Exports (PDF, HTML, blog) are derivatives

Weekly Writing Pipeline (Mon-Sun)

Monday: Capture

• Dump fragments, quotes, observations (20-30 minutes)
• Use daily notes for raw capture

Tuesday: Cluster

• Group Monday's notes into 3 thematic clusters
• Look for patterns across fragments

Wednesday: Outline

• One-sentence thesis
• Three proof points
• Opener idea
• Closer idea

Thursday: Draft

• Write rough draft using outline
• Mark gaps with [TK: ...] placeholders

Friday: Revision

• Top-down revision:
  1. Structure (big picture)
  2. Style (sentence-level)
  3. 3-column method (problem/diagnosis/fix)

Saturday: Outside Read

• Get feedback: where bored, unclear, unnecessary

Sunday: Publish

• Final pass, write teaser, ship it

Pipeline Stages Reference

| Stage | Description | Status Indicator | |---------|--------------------------|------------------| | Capture | Raw notes, fragments | In daily notes | | Cluster | Group notes into themes | Themed sections | | Outline | Thesis + structure | Has outline | | Draft | Fast draft | Has [TK:] tags | | Revise | Structural + style fixes | Clean prose | | Review | External feedback | Awaiting input | | Publish | Final edits + ship | In blog/ |

Make Commands Reference

Content Creation

• make daily - Create today's daily note with template
• make new - Interactive file creation wizard

Export & Publishing

• make export LETTER=path/to/letter.md - Export letter to PDF
• make export-blog POST=blog/post.md - Export blog post to PDF

Search & Organization

• make search TERM=keyword - Full vault search
• make wordcount FILE=path - Word/line count for file
• make check-links - Find broken internal links
• make recent - Show last 10 modified files with previews
• make todo - Find all TODO/FIXME/NOTE comments
• make tags - Extract and index all #tags
• make graph - Generate Mermaid link visualization
• make update-index - Auto-update index.md files

Quality & Maintenance

• make lint - Check markdown formatting issues
• make lint-fix - Auto-fix common formatting issues
• make stats - Vault statistics dashboard
• make track-words - Track word count history
• make backup - Create timestamped backup archive
• make clean - Remove all generated PDFs

Git Integration

• make commit MSG="message" - Quick commit

File Conventions

Blog Posts

YAML frontmatter at top:

---
slug: post-url-slug
title: "Post Title"
date: Month Day, Year
excerpt: "Brief description for previews"
categories: ["Category1", "Category2"]
---

Daily Notes

• Date as title: # 2025-10-04
• Structure:

  ## top 3
  -
  ## log
  -
  ## gratitude
  -
  

Projects

• Descriptive title
• Status section showing pipeline stage
• Can be multi-file (subdirectories OK)

Letters

• Include date at top
• Use templates/letter.md as starting point

Internal Linking

• Relative paths: [text](../reference/guide.md)
• Wiki-style: [[filename]] or [[filename|display text]]
• Run make check-links regularly to maintain link hygiene

Workflow Best Practices

1. Daily practice: Start each day with make daily
2. Weekly review: Check make stats for writing progress
3. Monthly backup: Run make backup to create archive
4. Link hygiene: Run make check-links before major commits
5. Clean exports: Use make clean to remove old PDFs before backing up

TK Placeholders

Use [TK: description] to mark gaps during drafting:

• [TK: find citation]
• [TK: add example]
• [TK: verify this claim]

Search for TK tags before publishing: make search TERM="[TK:"

Template System

Templates in templates/ use {{PLACEHOLDER}} syntax:

• {{TITLE}} - Document title
• {{DATE}} - Current date
• {{SLUG}} - URL-friendly slug

The make new command automatically substitutes variables.

Archiving Process

When a project is complete:

1. Move to archive/ preserving directory structure
2. Update any index files
3. Run make check-links to ensure no broken references
4. Commit with clear message about archival

Instructions for Claude

When working with vault files:

1. Always respect the house rulebook - markdown is source of truth, filenames are utilitarian
2. Track pipeline stages - note where each piece is in the Mon-Sun flow
3. Suggest appropriate Make commands - don't reinvent tools that already exist
4. Preserve YAML frontmatter - critical for blog posts
5. Maintain link hygiene - check links when suggesting file moves
6. Use templates - reference templates/ for new file creation
7. Mark research gaps with TK - help user track what needs investigation

For more details, see:

• make-commands.md - Complete command reference