albert-ying/agentic-cortex/vault-updater

Vault Updater

Applies changes from sync adapter manifests to vault notes. This is the write-side of the sync pipeline — adapters produce manifests, this skill consumes them.

When to Use

Called by the /sync router after an adapter produces a manifest. Not invoked directly.

Input

One or more manifest JSON files from .cache/sync-state/*-manifest-*.json.

Process

1. Acquire Lock

Check .cache/sync-state/.updater-lock:

• If not exists: create it with current timestamp
• If exists and < 5 min old: wait 10s, retry up to 3 times, then fail
• If exists and > 5 min old: assume stale, delete and recreate

2. Load Manifests

Read all *-manifest-*.json files passed as input. Group changes by target note path. If multiple sources target the same note + section, you must synthesize content from all sources into a single coherent update (don't just pick one).

3. Apply Changes

For each target note, process changes in this order:

1. update_frontmatter first (sets metadata)
2. rewrite_section next (structural changes)
3. append last (additive only)

rewrite_section

1. Read the note file
2. Find the target heading (e.g., ## Current Status)
3. Find the next heading at the same level (##)
4. Replace everything between them with the new content
5. If heading doesn't exist: insert at end of document, but BEFORE ## Chat History or ## Stats sections if they exist
6. If note has no headings at all: append heading + content at end of file
7. Update frontmatter updated: timestamp

append

1. Find the target section heading
2. Insert content at the end of that section (before next same-level heading)
3. If heading doesn't exist: create it (same insertion rules as rewrite_section)
4. Update frontmatter updated: timestamp

update_frontmatter

1. Parse existing YAML frontmatter
2. Merge new fields (overwrite existing keys, add new keys)
3. Always update updated: to current epoch milliseconds
4. Preserve field order: id, title, desc, ..., updated, created

create_note

1. Check suggested_path doesn't already exist. If it does, skip and log warning.
2. Generate id: 23 lowercase alphanumeric characters (use Python: ''.join(random.choices(string.ascii_lowercase + string.digits, k=23)))
3. Build frontmatter from manifest frontmatter object + generated id + timestamps
4. Write full note: frontmatter + content from manifest
5. Verify note follows vault hierarchy convention (filename matches hierarchy)

4. Confidence Gating

Before applying each change:

• confidence >= 0.8: apply silently, add to "applied" list
• confidence < 0.8: apply, add to "flagged" list (included in delta briefing with evidence)

5. Commit

git add [all changed/created note files]
git commit -m "vault-sync: N notes updated from <sources> (YYYY-MM-DD)"

Source list comes from the source field of consumed manifests (deduplicated).

6. Report

Output a delta summary in this format:

## Sync Delta
 
**Applied**: N changes across M notes
**Flagged** (low confidence): K changes
 
### Changes
-`user.jane-doe.md` — rewrote "## Current Status" (email, 0.95)
-`proj.2025.example.md` — rewrote "## Current Status" (email+screenpipe, 0.88)
-`user.john-smith.md` — **created** (email, 0.85)
 
### Flagged (confidence < 0.8)
-`sci.tools.colabfold.md` — rewrote "## Current Status" (screenpipe, 0.72) — evidence: 3h ColabFold usage detected in screenpipe

7. Release Lock

Delete .cache/sync-state/.updater-lock.

8. Refresh Working Memory

After committing, update _working-memory.md:

• Rewrite ## Sync Status section with current timestamps per source
• If calendar manifest was applied: update ## Today's Calendar section
• If email manifest was applied: update ## Email Inbox — Active Items section

Error Handling

• If a note file can't be parsed (malformed YAML, encoding error): skip it, log to flagged list
• If git commit fails: log error, do NOT retry. Leave lock in place for debugging.
• If a rewrite_section can't find the note file: skip (note may have been deleted)