echo/echo-memory.plugin.src/skills/echo-memory/SKILL.md

name, description

name

description

echo-memory

Use the ECHO Obsidian vault as Jason's persistent memory across Claude/CoWork sessions. Use whenever Jason asks to remember, save, note, log, or capture anything durable — facts, preferences, decisions, schedule changes, commitments — or asks what Claude knows about him, what was discussed or decided before, to check his notes, load his memory/profile/context, add to his inbox, or to track a new project. Trigger even without memory phrasing when the request implies recalling or persisting state across sessions ("pick up where we left off", "anything on X before my meeting?"). Also use proactively at the start of substantive work sessions to load context and at the end to log outcomes. Do NOT use for Bryan's goldbrain vault, Obsidian/REST-API development questions, "memory" meaning RAM, timed reminders, email or local-file lookups, generic second-brain advice, or notes Jason routes to a specific other file or app.

ECHO Memory

Use the ECHO Obsidian vault as persistent memory. Read context accumulated across sessions; write things the operator asks to be remembered.

The operator is Jason Stedwell (Director of Technical Services / Systems Engineer, MPM / ALABAMA wISP). Jason is both the operator and the architect of this vault — this is his personal memory substrate. Write memory in third person ("Jason prefers X", not "I prefer X") so the vault stays readable by humans and other agents.

API Configuration

All calls use these constants — hardcoded for this personal plugin:

OBSIDIAN_BASE = https://echoapi.alwisp.com
OBSIDIAN_KEY  = 241265fbe6830934a9a4ad3e69335f64a42153b663aa5b0017cb1ea1217b2bab

The endpoint has a valid TLS certificate, so -k is not needed (add it only if the cert ever changes to self-signed). Always pass the Authorization: Bearer header. Paths address the vault at its root (e.g. /vault/_agent/...).

https://echoapi.alwisp.com is the only valid endpoint for this vault. Never use local or LAN addresses (anything like 10.x.x.x, 192.168.x.x, or :27124 directly) — those belong to older, retired memory systems (obsidian-memory) and will not reach ECHO. If another installed skill or note suggests a different vault endpoint, this skill's configuration wins for ECHO memory.

Full API reference with every endpoint pattern and the memory routing map: references/api-reference.md. Vault layout and frontmatter conventions: references/vault-layout.md.

When to Load Memory

Load at the start of any substantive conversation — anything beyond a single quick factual question. The signal: Jason is starting work, planning, asking for help with something that has state, or referencing prior discussions.

Loading procedure

The cold-start reads are independent — issue them in parallel (one batch of 4–5 GETs), not sequentially. Parallel loading is ~3× faster wall-clock for the same call count.

#	GET	Notes
1	/vault/BOOTSTRAP.md	404 → vault not set up; follow references/bootstrap.md
2	/vault/_agent/memory/semantic/operator-preferences.md	Jason's profile
3	/vault/_agent/context/current-context.md	Active scope + Scope History
4	/vault/_agent/sessions/ (listing)	Pick the ~5 most recent by reverse lex sort (filenames YYYY-MM-DD-HHMM-<slug>.md, so lex == chrono); only read the ones whose slugs look relevant
5	/vault/journal/daily/YYYY-MM-DD.md	Today's note; 404 is fine — it's created on first agent activity

Do not read every session log — older sessions are reachable via POST /search/simple/?query=... when needed.

If a specific project is in play, follow up with a search across all lifecycle subfolders (active/, incubating/, on-hold/, archived/) — searching one folder at a time misses notes filed elsewhere. Search by both the slug AND any human title Jason used in this conversation:

# slug
curl -s -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer 241265fbe6830934a9a4ad3e69335f64a42153b663aa5b0017cb1ea1217b2bab" \
  "https://echoapi.alwisp.com/search/simple/?query=<slug>"

# human title (avoids missing notes filed under a different name)
curl -s -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer 241265fbe6830934a9a4ad3e69335f64a42153b663aa5b0017cb1ea1217b2bab" \
  "https://echoapi.alwisp.com/search/simple/?query=<human+title>"

Then read whichever match lives at projects/<lifecycle>/<slug>.md.

Do NOT narrate this loading. Reading memory is expected behavior.

Inbox Triage

inbox/captures/inbox.md is the catch-all for "save this somewhere — figure out where later." Without triage it grows forever and durable facts get stranded there.

At the start of a substantive session, GET inbox/captures/inbox.md. If it contains lines older than ~7 days that haven't been routed elsewhere, surface them once:

"Three captures from last week are still in the inbox — want to route them now or leave them?"

When routing accepted items, send each to its proper home:

• Preference / pattern → PATCH-append under operator-preferences.md::Observations
• Project idea → PUT projects/incubating/<slug>.md
• Durable fact → PUT _agent/memory/semantic/<slug>.md
• Person fact → PUT/PATCH resources/people/<name>.md

Then record the move in inbox/processing-log/YYYY-MM-DD.md (one line per item: - <original line> → <destination path>). Don't delete the original capture unless Jason explicitly asks — the processing log is the audit trail.

Project Lifecycle

Projects move through four folders under projects/. The folder name and the status: frontmatter field MUST agree — they are two views of the same state.

Folder	status:	Meaning
projects/incubating/	incubating	Idea captured; not actively worked. Promote when work starts.
projects/active/	active	Current work. The default state for anything in motion.
projects/on-hold/	on-hold	Paused but still tracked. Resumable.
projects/archived/	archived	Done, abandoned, or rolled into something else. Not deleted.

Promotion / transition rule: move the file to the new folder AND update status: in the same change. A file in projects/active/ with status: on-hold is broken state — fix it when you see it.

Searching: POST /search/simple/?query=<slug> covers all four subfolders in one call. Always search before creating a new note (see the pre-write rule below).

When to Write Memory

Write when Jason:

• States a fact, preference, or commitment worth keeping ("I prefer X", "we use uv not pip", "standup is Tuesday at 10")
• Makes a non-obvious decision worth recording
• Says "remember that", "save this", "log this", "add to memory", "note that"
• Finishes a meaningful working session future sessions should pick up

Write in third person about Jason. Every note carries the canonical frontmatter (see below). Agent-generated notes set agent_written: true.

Before you write — search first (MANDATORY for new notes)

Before creating any new note at projects/<lifecycle>/<slug>.md, _agent/memory/semantic/<slug>.md, resources/people/<name>.md, or any other slug-addressed location, search the whole vault for that slug. Listing a single folder (e.g. projects/active/) is NOT sufficient — a note with the same slug may exist in projects/on-hold/, projects/incubating/, projects/archived/, or under a different folder entirely.

curl -s -X POST \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer 241265fbe6830934a9a4ad3e69335f64a42153b663aa5b0017cb1ea1217b2bab" \
  "https://echoapi.alwisp.com/search/simple/?query=<slug>"

If a match is found:

• In a non-active project subfolder (on-hold/, incubating/, archived/): promote/merge — PUT the merged content to projects/active/<slug>.md with status: active, then DELETE the old location. Preserve the earliest created: date.
• In the same folder you intended to write: update in place (PATCH or merged PUT). Never silently overwrite — fold the existing content in first.
• Elsewhere (e.g. a stale duplicate under resources/): tell Jason and ask which should be canonical before writing.

Search both the slug AND any human title Jason used (e.g. slug echo-memory and title ECHO plugin). Slug-only searches miss notes filed under a different naming scheme. Two cheap POST /search/simple/?query=... calls beat one expensive cleanup pass later.

Only after the search comes back empty (or you've decided to merge) is it safe to create a new note. This rule prevents the most common duplication bug: a note exists in on-hold/ but the agent only checked active/ and created a parallel record.

Before you append — read first (idempotency)

POST appends to the end of a file. It is not idempotent — running the same write twice (network retry, replay, re-trigger) produces duplicate lines that grow files silently. Before any POST that adds an entry to:

• inbox/captures/inbox.md
• a daily note's ## Agent Log section
• a ## Fact / Pattern / ## Observations / ## Log heading

…GET the target file (or the heading, via /heading/...) and substring-search for the exact line you're about to write. If present, skip the POST. The extra GET is cheap and pays for itself within a few sessions.

This rule does not apply to PUT (which is fully replacing the file) or PATCH replace (which is overwriting a section by design).

Append to a file (default — additive entries)

Write content to a temp file first to handle multi-line markdown cleanly, then POST:

cat > /tmp/obs_entry.md << 'OBSEOF'
- 2026-06-05: <your entry here>
OBSEOF

curl -s -X POST \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer 241265fbe6830934a9a4ad3e69335f64a42153b663aa5b0017cb1ea1217b2bab" \
  -H "Content-Type: text/markdown" \
  --data-binary @/tmp/obs_entry.md \
  "https://echoapi.alwisp.com/vault/inbox/captures/inbox.md"

POST appends to the end of a file (creating it if absent). Use it for inbox captures and log sections.

Patch a specific heading (targeted update)

Heading targets use the FULL heading path, ::-delimited from the top-level heading — a bare subheading name fails with 400 invalid-target and the write is lost. For example, ## Fact / Pattern under the # Operator Preferences H1 is targeted as Operator Preferences::Fact / Pattern.

Default: GET the document map first (every first PATCH to a file in a session — cache the result mentally for subsequent PATCHes to the same file). This eliminates the most common failure mode of PATCH:

curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer 241265fbe6830934a9a4ad3e69335f64a42153b663aa5b0017cb1ea1217b2bab" \
  -H "Accept: application/vnd.olrapi.document-map+json" \
  "https://echoapi.alwisp.com/vault/_agent/memory/semantic/operator-preferences.md"

Returns { "headings": [...], "blocks": [...], "frontmatterFields": [...] }. Copy the heading string verbatim into Target. Only skip the doc-map GET if you wrote the file yourself in this session (you already know its structure).

Then PATCH:

cat > /tmp/obs_patch.md << 'OBSEOF'
Jason prefers status updates that lead with the decision.
OBSEOF

curl -s -X PATCH \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer 241265fbe6830934a9a4ad3e69335f64a42153b663aa5b0017cb1ea1217b2bab" \
  -H "Operation: append" \
  -H "Target-Type: heading" \
  -H "Target: Operator Preferences::Fact / Pattern" \
  -H "Content-Type: text/markdown" \
  --data-binary @/tmp/obs_patch.md \
  "https://echoapi.alwisp.com/vault/_agent/memory/semantic/operator-preferences.md"

Use Operation: replace to overwrite a section entirely (e.g. a project's Project Name::Current status). Percent-encode non-ASCII characters in the Target header; spaces are fine.

Bump updated: after meaningful changes

When a PATCH or PUT changes meaningful content (status update, decision recorded, current-status replacement, scope switch), also PATCH the frontmatter updated: field to today's date. This keeps stale-detection queries honest.

curl -s -X PATCH \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer 241265fbe6830934a9a4ad3e69335f64a42153b663aa5b0017cb1ea1217b2bab" \
  -H "Operation: replace" -H "Target-Type: frontmatter" -H "Target: updated" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" --data '"2026-06-06"' \
  "https://echoapi.alwisp.com/vault/projects/active/<slug>.md"

Skip the bump for routine log appends — adding an Agent Log line, an inbox capture, or a timestamped Observations bullet doesn't constitute a meaningful content change. Bump on substance, not on heartbeat.

Create or overwrite a file (PUT)

cat > /tmp/obs_file.md << 'OBSEOF'
---
type: project
status: active
created: 2026-06-05
updated: 2026-06-05
tags: []
agent_written: true
source_notes: []
---

# Project Name

## Current status
...

## Related
- [[journal/daily/2026-06-05]]
OBSEOF

curl -s -X PUT \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer 241265fbe6830934a9a4ad3e69335f64a42153b663aa5b0017cb1ea1217b2bab" \
  -H "Content-Type: text/markdown" \
  --data-binary @/tmp/obs_file.md \
  "https://echoapi.alwisp.com/vault/projects/active/my-project.md"

The API creates intermediate directories automatically.

Search the vault

curl -s -X POST \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer 241265fbe6830934a9a4ad3e69335f64a42153b663aa5b0017cb1ea1217b2bab" \
  "https://echoapi.alwisp.com/search/simple/?query=your+search+terms"

Scope Switching (current-context.md)

_agent/context/current-context.md tracks a single active scope. Jason routinely shifts scope within a day (echo plugin → MPM brand → WISP docs).

When scope changes:

1. PATCH prepend a dated bullet to ## Scope History capturing the prior scope (one line: - 2026-06-06: <prior scope summary>). If ## Scope History doesn't exist yet, POST the heading first, same pattern as the daily-note Agent Log.
2. PATCH replace ## Scope with the new scope.
3. PATCH the frontmatter updated: field.

This keeps a rolling trail of recent scopes in one file instead of spawning separate stash notes. Trim Scope History to the last ~10 entries when it grows past that.

Vault Health (monthly)

On the first substantive session of a calendar month, run a quick health pass and write findings to reviews/monthly/YYYY-MM-vault-health.md. Don't auto-fix without asking.

Checks:

1. Stale active projects — for each note in projects/active/, check updated: >30 days. Likely belongs in on-hold/.
2. Unprocessed inbox — GET inbox/captures/inbox.md. List items older than 14 days that never moved through the triage protocol.
3. Duplicate slugs across lifecycle folders — any slug appearing in more than one of active/, incubating/, on-hold/, archived/ is broken state.
4. Broken-heading risk — sample 2–3 frequently-PATCHed files; confirm ## Agent Log, ## Scope, ## Fact / Pattern, ## Observations headings still exist.

The pass is cheap (a few searches + a directory listing) and pays for itself by catching drift before it requires a reorg.

Daily Note — Agent Log

After substantive activity, write a one-line entry to today's daily note's ## Agent Log heading. The daily-note template (journal/templates/daily-note-template.md) defines this heading, but ad-hoc daily notes created without the template don't have it — so PATCH can fail with invalid-target if the note exists but lacks the heading.

Procedure (resilient):

1. Try to GET journal/daily/YYYY-MM-DD.md.
2. If 404 — PUT a fresh daily note from the template, then PATCH.
3. If 200 but ## Agent Log is missing — POST \n\n## Agent Log\n to the file to add the heading, then PATCH. Detect the heading by grepping the raw markdown for an anchored ^## Agent Log line — do NOT grep the document-map JSON, whose headings are full ::-delimited paths (e.g. "2026-06-07::Agent Log"); a bare "Agent Log" match fails there and a duplicate heading gets appended.
4. PATCH-append the entry under the target <YYYY-MM-DD>::Agent Log (the H1 of a daily note is the date, so that's the full target path).

DATE=$(date +%Y-%m-%d)
DAILY="https://echoapi.alwisp.com/vault/journal/daily/${DATE}.md"
AUTH="Authorization: Bearer 241265fbe6830934a9a4ad3e69335f64a42153b663aa5b0017cb1ea1217b2bab"

# 1+2: ensure the daily note exists (PUT from template if missing)
HTTP=$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" -H "$AUTH" "$DAILY")
if [ "$HTTP" = "404" ]; then
  curl -s -H "$AUTH" "https://echoapi.alwisp.com/vault/journal/templates/daily-note-template.md" \
    | sed "s/{{date:YYYY-MM-DD}}/${DATE}/g" \
    | curl -s -X PUT -H "$AUTH" -H "Content-Type: text/markdown" --data-binary @- "$DAILY"
fi

# 3: ensure the `## Agent Log` heading exists.
# Grep the RAW markdown for an anchored heading line. Do NOT grep the document-map
# JSON: its headings are full "::"-delimited paths (e.g. "2026-06-07::Agent Log"), so a
# bare '"Agent Log"' match never matches and a DUPLICATE heading gets appended each time.
if ! curl -s -H "$AUTH" "$DAILY" | grep -q '^## Agent Log'; then
  printf '\n\n## Agent Log\n' | curl -s -X POST -H "$AUTH" -H "Content-Type: text/markdown" --data-binary @- "$DAILY"
fi

# 4: PATCH-append the entry
cat > /tmp/agent_log.md << OBSEOF
- ${DATE}: <one-line entry here>
OBSEOF

curl -s -X PATCH -H "$AUTH" \
  -H "Operation: append" \
  -H "Target-Type: heading" \
  -H "Target: ${DATE}::Agent Log" \
  -H "Content-Type: text/markdown" \
  --data-binary @/tmp/agent_log.md \
  "$DAILY"

Where to Write

Situation	File / path	Method
Unsure where it goes / quick capture	inbox/captures/inbox.md (date-prefixed line)	POST
Operator preference or durable fact	_agent/memory/semantic/operator-preferences.md (append under the right heading)	PATCH
Other durable facts / patterns	_agent/memory/semantic/<slug>.md	PUT
What happened (event record)	_agent/memory/episodic/<slug>.md	PUT
Short-lived working state	_agent/memory/working/<slug>.md	PUT
Task-scoped context / focus	_agent/context/current-context.md	PATCH / PUT
Working session ended with substance	_agent/sessions/YYYY-MM-DD-HHMM-<slug>.md	PUT
Long-running project state	projects/<lifecycle>/<slug>.md (see Project Lifecycle)	PUT + PATCH
Non-obvious decision (ADR)	decisions/by-date/YYYY-MM-DD-<slug>.md (see mirror note below)	PUT
Person context	resources/people/<name>.md	PUT / PATCH
Concept / reference note	resources/concepts/ or resources/references/	PUT
Daily activity / Agent Log	journal/daily/YYYY-MM-DD.md — see Daily Note — Agent Log above	PATCH (with auto-create)

Decision mirrors: if the decision belongs to an existing note in projects/active/, add a [[wikilink]] to the ADR under that project's ## Key Decisions heading (PATCH). If no matching project note exists, skip the mirror — the by-date ADR is sufficient; do not invent topical mirror files in decisions/by-project/.

Never delete files unless Jason explicitly asks. Memory is append-friendly; deletion is destructive.

Session Logging

At the end of substantive conversations (ones that produced decisions, artifacts, or commitments), create a session log. Ask once if unsure: "Want me to log a session note for this?"

Filename format is canonical: _agent/sessions/YYYY-MM-DD-HHMM-<slug>.md. Always include the four-digit local-time HHMM component — it makes filenames lexically sort in true chronological order, which is what Step 3 of loading relies on. Older session logs without the HHMM part exist; leave them alone, but every new one must use the full form.

See references/session-log-template.md for the body format.

cat > /tmp/obs_session.md << 'OBSEOF'
<session log content — see references/session-log-template.md>
OBSEOF

curl -s -X PUT \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer 241265fbe6830934a9a4ad3e69335f64a42153b663aa5b0017cb1ea1217b2bab" \
  -H "Content-Type: text/markdown" \
  --data-binary @/tmp/obs_session.md \
  "https://echoapi.alwisp.com/vault/_agent/sessions/2026-06-05-1430-my-session.md"

Then add a one-line entry to today's daily note via the Daily Note — Agent Log procedure above.

Vault Unreachable

If the API returns a connection error, timeout, or 502, tell Jason once that the memory vault is unreachable (a 502 usually means Obsidian/the REST plugin is not running on the backend), then proceed without memory. Do not retry repeatedly.

Style Rules

• Write in third person about Jason: "Jason prefers X", not "I prefer X".
• Jason is both operator and architect here — unlike goldbrain (Bryan's vault, which Jason architected). Do not cross-write: Bryan's preferences belong in goldbrain, Jason's belong here.
• Anchor relative dates on the conversation's currentDate before writing. "Today" → currentDate. "Thursday" / "next week" → resolve to an absolute YYYY-MM-DD. Never guess from training-data knowledge of the current year.
• Every memory file has canonical YAML frontmatter — see references/vault-layout.md.
• Set agent_written: true on agent-generated notes and list source_notes (plain relative paths, not links).
• created: is the earliest known date the entity was tracked anywhere in the vault, not "today". When merging notes (e.g. promoting on-hold/ → active/), preserve the earliest created: and only bump updated:.
• source_notes lists the note(s) that triggered or supplied content for this one — e.g. the session log that produced a project update, or the daily note where a captured fact originated. It is a backward link to inputs. Forward links (this note → other notes it references) belong in the ## Related section in the note body, never in frontmatter.
• Never put [[wikilinks]] in frontmatter — YAML parses them as nested lists and the links break in Obsidian's reading view. Put all cross-references in a ## Related section in the note body as a bulleted list of [[links]].
• Use Obsidian wiki links ([[note name]]) freely in the note body for cross-references.
• Keep entries short and focused. Fewer, sharper entries beat many noisy ones — Jason explicitly prefers concision.
• About to write something large or sensitive? Show Jason the content first and confirm.

operator-preferences.md — Rules vs Observations

_agent/memory/semantic/operator-preferences.md separates two kinds of content:

• ## Fact / Pattern — promoted, deduped rules. No date prefix. These are timeless: "Jason prefers concise communication." Append here only when a rule is stable.
• ## Observations — timestamped raw observations. Date-prefixed: - 2026-06-06: Jason chose X over Y because Z. This is where new evidence goes by default.

During monthly Vault Health or when an observation stabilizes, promote it from ## Observations into ## Fact / Pattern (drop the date) and remove the duplicate from Observations. Trim Observations to the last ~30 entries when it grows past that — the rest live in session logs.

What This Skill Does Not Do

• Does not replace reasoning. The vault is reference material — apply judgment.
• Does not auto-summarize the whole vault. Read targeted files, not everything.
• Does not store passwords or secrets, and never writes the API key into a vault note. If asked to "remember my password is X", decline and suggest a password manager.