Bootstrap & Repair

The plugin is the single source of truth for ECHO's structure. Everything needed to stand up a vault ships in this skill under scaffold/ — there is no dependency on any in-vault control doc and no external/local re-seed path. This makes the vault portable: point the REST API at any empty Obsidian vault, run this procedure, and it becomes a working ECHO vault.

The vault holds data only. It carries no CLAUDE.md / BOOTSTRAP.md / STRUCTURE.md / index.md. The "is this vault set up?" signal is a small marker file, _agent/echo-vault.md.

AUTH="Authorization: Bearer 241265fbe6830934a9a4ad3e69335f64a42153b663aa5b0017cb1ea1217b2bab"
BASE="https://echoapi.alwisp.com"

Probe — is the vault bootstrapped?

At session start, GET the marker:

curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" -H "$AUTH" "$BASE/vault/_agent/echo-vault.md"

200 → bootstrapped. Read the marker's schema_version; if it is less than the plugin's current schema (1), run a migration pass (see Migrations below), otherwise proceed straight to the loading procedure in SKILL.md.
404 → empty/unconfigured vault. Run Fresh bootstrap below. (If you expected an existing vault, confirm with the operator once that the REST API is pointed at the right vault before seeding.)

Fresh bootstrap (empty vault)

Idempotent and additive. Never overwrite an existing file — GET-probe each path and skip any that already returns 200. The marker is written last, so the vault is only flagged "set up" after every piece is in place.

Throughout, {{DATE}} means today's date (YYYY-MM-DD), resolved from the conversation's currentDate. Substitute it before PUTting any scaffold file or anchor seed.

1. Folder tree

The REST API auto-creates parent directories on PUT, so creating the tree = seeding a file into each leaf. Obsidian and git both ignore empty dirs, so drop a one-line README.md into any leaf that wouldn't otherwise receive a file. Required tree (leaves marked → README):

inbox/captures  inbox/imports  inbox/processing-log
journal/daily  journal/templates
projects/active  projects/incubating  projects/on-hold  projects/archived
areas/business  areas/personal  areas/learning  areas/systems
resources/concepts  resources/references  resources/people  resources/meetings
decisions/by-date
reviews/weekly  reviews/monthly  reviews/quarterly  reviews/annual
_agent/context  _agent/memory/working  _agent/memory/episodic  _agent/memory/semantic
_agent/sessions  _agent/templates  _agent/heartbeat
_agent/skills/active  _agent/skills/archived

decisions/by-project/ is intentionally not created — it is retired. A project-relevant decision is mirrored as a [[wikilink]] under that project's ## Key Decisions heading instead.

A leaf README is just a one-liner, e.g.:

printf '# %s\n\nMemory vault folder. See the echo-memory plugin for conventions.\n' "captures" \
 | curl -s -X PUT -H "$AUTH" -H "Content-Type: text/markdown" --data-binary @- \
   "$BASE/vault/inbox/captures/README.md"

2. Templates

PUT every file under this skill's scaffold/templates/ to its mirrored vault path. The tree mirrors 1:1:

Scaffold file	Vault path
`scaffold/templates/_agent/templates/session-log-template.md`	`_agent/templates/session-log-template.md`
`scaffold/templates/_agent/templates/context-bundle-template.md`	`_agent/templates/context-bundle-template.md`
`scaffold/templates/_agent/templates/working-memory-template.md`	`_agent/templates/working-memory-template.md`
`scaffold/templates/_agent/templates/semantic-memory-template.md`	`_agent/templates/semantic-memory-template.md`
`scaffold/templates/journal/templates/daily-note-template.md`	`journal/templates/daily-note-template.md`
`scaffold/templates/journal/templates/weekly-review-template.md`	`journal/templates/weekly-review-template.md`
`scaffold/templates/projects/project-template.md`	`projects/project-template.md`
`scaffold/templates/decisions/decision-template.md`	`decisions/decision-template.md`

Templates keep their Obsidian Templater tokens ({{date:YYYY-MM-DD}} etc.) verbatim — those are resolved by Templater / by the skill's daily-note routine, not at seed time.

curl -s -X PUT -H "$AUTH" -H "Content-Type: text/markdown" \
  --data-binary @scaffold/templates/journal/templates/daily-note-template.md \
  "$BASE/vault/journal/templates/daily-note-template.md"

3. Anchor seeds (only if absent — no fabricated facts)

Substitute {{DATE}} → today, then PUT each:

Scaffold file	Vault path
`scaffold/anchors/operator-preferences.seed.md`	`_agent/memory/semantic/operator-preferences.md`
`scaffold/anchors/current-context.seed.md`	`_agent/context/current-context.md`
`scaffold/anchors/inbox.seed.md`	`inbox/captures/inbox.md`

The operator-preferences seed is deliberately empty — do not invent preferences. Real facts accrue through use.

4. Vault README (human signpost)

Substitute {{DATE}} if present, then PUT scaffold/README.vault.md → /vault/README.md. This is the only human-facing control doc in the vault and is not read by the agent for routing.

5. Marker (write last)

Substitute {{DATE}}, then PUT scaffold/echo-vault.md → /vault/_agent/echo-vault.md. Once this returns 200, the vault is bootstrapped.

6. First-run trace

Create today's daily note from journal/templates/daily-note-template.md (resolve the {{date:…}} tokens to today), append a one-line ## Agent Log entry noting the bootstrap, and write a session log in _agent/sessions/YYYY-MM-DD-HHMM-bootstrap.md. Tell the operator briefly what was created.

Repair (existing vault, something missing)

Run the same steps 1–5, but GET-probe each path first and only create what is missing. Never overwrite. If a file exists but looks malformed, flag it in the session log rather than replacing it. Repair is safe to run any time and is the right response if the loading procedure hits an unexpected 404 on a structural path.

Migrations (`schema_version` mismatch)

When the marker's schema_version is older than the plugin's, apply the migration steps for each intervening version, then PATCH the marker's schema_version frontmatter to the new value.

0 → 1 (control-docs-in-plugin): the vault previously carried root control docs (CLAUDE.md, BOOTSTRAP.md, STRUCTURE.md, index.md). Back them up outside the vault, DELETE them, PUT the thin scaffold/README.vault.md over the old verbose README.md, write the _agent/echo-vault.md marker, and scrub now-dangling [[CLAUDE]]/[[BOOTSTRAP]]/[[STRUCTURE]]/[[index]] links from the ## Related sections of operator-preferences.md and current-context.md (leave historical session logs alone). Confirm with the operator before deleting.

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