9.3 KiB
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.
Quick path — run the scripts
Bootstrap, repair, and migration are deterministic scripts; prefer them over running the curl steps by hand. They resolve the scaffold relative to their own location, so they work regardless of the caller's CWD:
SCRIPTS="${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/echo-memory/scripts"
"$SCRIPTS/bootstrap.sh" --dry-run # preview what would be seeded
"$SCRIPTS/bootstrap.sh" # idempotent, additive — fills only what is missing (also the repair path)
"$SCRIPTS/migrate.sh" # plan a schema migration (dry-run)
"$SCRIPTS/migrate.sh" --apply # perform the migration (moves/deletes, after review)
bootstrap.sh writes through echo.sh, so every step is status-checked and the marker is written last. The manual steps below document what the script does (and serve as a fallback if the script can't run).
AUTH="Authorization: Bearer 241265fbe6830934a9a4ad3e69335f64a42153b663aa5b0017cb1ea1217b2bab"
BASE="https://echoapi.alwisp.com"
Probe — is the vault bootstrapped?
At session start, GET the marker:
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" -H "$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 (2), run a migration pass (see Migrations below), otherwise proceed straight to the loading procedure inSKILL.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/weekly journal/monthly journal/quarterly journal/annual 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/companies resources/meetings
decisions/by-date
_agent/context _agent/memory/working _agent/memory/episodic _agent/memory/semantic
_agent/sessions _agent/health _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 Decisionsheading instead.
reviews/is not created — it is retired. Journal rollups (weekly/monthly/quarterly/annual) live underjournal/; the monthly vault-health audit lives under_agent/health/.
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 @- \
"$BASE/vault/inbox/captures/README.md"
2. Templates
PUT every file under this skill's scaffold/templates/ to its mirrored vault path. The tree mirrors 1:1:
| Scaffold file | Vault path |
|---|---|
scaffold/templates/_agent/templates/session-log-template.md |
_agent/templates/session-log-template.md |
scaffold/templates/_agent/templates/context-bundle-template.md |
_agent/templates/context-bundle-template.md |
scaffold/templates/_agent/templates/working-memory-template.md |
_agent/templates/working-memory-template.md |
scaffold/templates/_agent/templates/semantic-memory-template.md |
_agent/templates/semantic-memory-template.md |
scaffold/templates/journal/templates/daily-note-template.md |
journal/templates/daily-note-template.md |
scaffold/templates/journal/templates/weekly-review-template.md |
journal/templates/weekly-review-template.md |
scaffold/templates/projects/project-template.md |
projects/project-template.md |
scaffold/templates/decisions/decision-template.md |
decisions/decision-template.md |
Templates keep their Obsidian Templater tokens ({{date:YYYY-MM-DD}} etc.) verbatim — those are resolved by Templater / by the skill's daily-note routine, not at seed time.
Resolve scaffold paths against the skill directory — never a bare relative @scaffold/..., which assumes the caller's CWD is the skill dir and silently sends an empty body otherwise:
SCAFFOLD="${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/echo-memory/scaffold"
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)
scripts/migrate.sh automates this: it reads the marker's schema_version, applies each intervening migration (idempotent, additive; destructive steps gated behind --apply and printed first), and stamps the marker at the end. Run it dry-run, review the plan, then --apply. The steps below are what it encodes — and the manual fallback.
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 thinscaffold/README.vault.mdover the old verboseREADME.md, write the_agent/echo-vault.mdmarker, and scrub now-dangling[[CLAUDE]]/[[BOOTSTRAP]]/[[STRUCTURE]]/[[index]]links from the## Relatedsections ofoperator-preferences.mdandcurrent-context.md(leave historical session logs alone). Confirm with the operator before deleting. - 1 → 2 (reviews-folded-into-journal): the
reviews/tree is retired. (a) For each note underreviews/weekly/andreviews/monthly/, MOVE it intojournal/weekly/(renameYYYY-Www-review.md→YYYY-Www.md) andjournal/monthly/respectively, preserving the earliestcreated:. (b) Move anyreviews/monthly/YYYY-MM-vault-health.mdto_agent/health/. (c) Movereviews/quarterly|annual/artifacts tojournal/quarterly|annual/. (d) Update inbound[[reviews/...]]wikilinks in## Relatedsections to the new paths. (e) DELETE the now-emptyreviews/tree. Confirm with the operator before deleting; leave historical session logs alone. (Jason's live vault was hand-migrated for the one existing2026-W24artifact on 2026-06-10; this step covers any vault bootstrapped under schema 1.)