Supersede

Skill DustinVK/wherefore/plugins/wherefore/skills/supersede

The why behind your code, as plain markdown in your repo. Agent skill to capture decisions, dashboard to browse them.

Install

npx -y skills add DustinVK/wherefore --skill supersede

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Mark a past decision in the wherefore log as superseded or obsolete. Use whenever the user explicitly wants to retire an existing entry without capturing a new discussion -- e.g. "mark 2026-01-15-graphql-caching obsolete", "supersede the RLS entry with the schema-per-tenant one", "we dropped GraphQL, mark that decision dead". Does NOT capture a new discussion; that belongs to the capture skill.

SKILL.md

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Wherefore: supersede

Retire an existing wherefore entry by marking it superseded (with a pointer to its replacement) or obsolete (context gone, no replacement). Updates the entry file and adds a visible banner, so neither the ask skill nor a human skimming raw files is left guessing. The entry's frontmatter is the single source of truth.

This skill is the only writer of decision status. Plan items have their own status machine (todo/doing/done/dropped) that never touches a decision's status; if work in the slate skill needs to retire or replace a decision, it routes here, not through slate.

No em dashes. Periods, commas, colons, semicolons, or parentheses instead. Firm project rule.

Never delete anything under a wherefore/ data dir. Retire, do not delete.

Workflow

Find the target entry. Locate wherefore/log/<slug>.md directly. If you only have a date or partial name, dump the entry frontmatter to find the slug:
```
for f in wherefore/log/*.md; do
  awk -v F="$f" 'BEGIN{print "=== " F " ==="}
    /^---[[:space:]]*$/ { n++; if (n==2) exit; next }
    n==1 { print }' "$f"
done
```
If not found, say so clearly. If already superseded or obsolete, show the current state and ask the user before overwriting; don't silently re-supersede.
Determine the operation.
- Superseded by: the user names a replacement slug (an existing entry) or a replacement description (a discussion not yet logged). If the replacement isn't logged yet, note it and proceed; the link will be a placeholder.
- Obsolete: no replacement. The decision was abandoned or its context no longer exists.

Edit the target entry's frontmatter:

Superseded:

status: superseded
superseded_by: <new-slug>
superseded_date: YYYY-MM-DD

Obsolete:

status: obsolete
superseded_date: YYYY-MM-DD

Add a one-line banner as the first body line of the target entry, after the closing --- of the frontmatter, before ## Summary. No emoji.

Superseded (the pointer is a relative Markdown link, per AGENTS.md "Linking"):
```
SUPERSEDED YYYY-MM-DD -> see [<new-slug>](<new-slug>.md). Kept for history, not current.
```
Obsolete:
```
OBSOLETE YYYY-MM-DD. Kept for history, not current.
```
Update the replacement entry (if applicable). If a replacement entry exists and doesn't already have supersedes: <old-slug> in its frontmatter, add it. Skip this step if the replacement isn't logged yet.
Report back. List every file touched. If the replacement entry isn't logged yet, say so and suggest running the capture skill to log it. Then flag plan items pointing at the retired decision: dump wherefore/plan/P-*.md frontmatter and find any item whose decision_ref includes the slug you just superseded or marked obsolete, and tell the user which ones. Do not mutate them: the ref is still accurate history, and the chain is followable through superseded_by. This reads decision_ref only and writes nothing to plan/, so it does not compromise this skill's standing as the sole writer of decision status.

Examples

Example 1: supersede with a named replacement User: "Supersede the RLS tenant isolation entry. It was replaced by the schema-per-tenant decision we logged last week." Action: locate wherefore/log/2026-06-23-rls-tenant-isolation.md. Edit its frontmatter (status: superseded, superseded_by: 2026-07-01-schema-per-tenant, superseded_date: 2026-07-01), add the banner. Add supersedes: 2026-06-23-rls-tenant-isolation to the replacement entry's frontmatter if missing. Report all files touched.

Example 2: supersede where the replacement is not yet logged User: "Mark 2026-03-10-graphql-caching superseded. We decided on REST caching headers but haven't logged that discussion yet." Action: edit the entry as above but use a descriptive placeholder for superseded_by (e.g. rest-caching-headers-tbd). Note in the report-back: "The replacement discussion hasn't been logged yet; run the capture skill to log it, then update the superseded_by field to the real slug."

Example 3: mark obsolete User: "Mark 2026-01-15-graphql-caching obsolete. We dropped GraphQL entirely." Action: edit the entry (status: obsolete, superseded_date: YYYY-MM-DD), add the obsolete banner. No superseded_by field. Report what was changed.