Garden recall

garden-recall

Pulls relevant notes from ~/garden/ for a query. Used by the SessionStart hook automatically; can also be invoked explicitly.

How

1. Identify search terms from the query. Include synonyms and related concepts.

2. Grep the vault for matches:

   grep -ril "<term>" ~/garden --include="*.md" | head -20
   

3. Skim summaries first (cheap pass). For each candidate, read just the frontmatter to get title + summary: + updated::

   for f in <candidate-files>; do
     awk '/^---$/{n++; if(n==2) exit} n==1' "$f"
     echo "FILE: $f"
     echo "---"
   done
   

   Notes ship with a one-sentence summary: field for exactly this purpose. Decide which 3–5 are worth opening in full based on summaries alone.

4. Rank candidates by relevance:

   • Summary directly answers the query > summary tangentially related
   • Exact match in title (frontmatter or H1) > body match
   • Recent updated: > older
   • Files in decisions/ and projects/ > generic notes/

5. Read the top 3–5 files in full. Only the ones the summary pass flagged as worth the tokens.

6. Follow links one hop when top hits reference unread notes that look on-topic. Use the typed edges in frontmatter to prune:

   • supersedes: [X] → if the query is about current state, skip X (it's been replaced). If the query is historical, X is exactly what to read.
   • depends-on: [X] → follow X only if the query is about prerequisites or root cause.
   • contradicts: [X] → always show both sides; surface the tension to the user.
   • derived-from: [X] → follow X only if the user wants source material or provenance.
   • part-of: [X] → X is the parent; read it for broader context. Sibling splits (other notes with the same part-of) may be relevant too.
   • Plain [[wiki-links]] in the body → skim summary first, then decide.

   For reverse-direction lookups ("what supersedes this?" / "what depends on this?"), grep:

   grep -rl "^supersedes:.*<note-name>" ~/garden --include="*.md"
   

7. Synthesize for the user with citations (use the note's summary: as the gist when it's accurate):

   From the vault:
   - [[<note-name>]] (updated YYYY-MM-DD): <summary or refined gist>
   - …
   
   <synthesized answer>
   

If a candidate has no summary: field, fall back to reading the first 20 lines. The gardener will backfill missing summaries on its next run; recall stays read-only.

When to use

• User asks "what did we decide about X"
• User asks about state of a project, person, or topic
• Before answering any question where the vault might already hold context: silent recall, then synthesize

Don't

• Don't read every match: top-ranked few only.
• Don't guess if the vault has nothing: say so plainly: "Nothing in the vault on that yet."
• Don't write to the vault from this skill. Recall is read-only.

Speed

For broad recall (many candidate files), use:

grep -ril "<term>" ~/garden --include="*.md" | xargs -I{} sh -c 'echo "=== {} ==="; head -20 "{}"' | head -200

to get a fast overview before deep-reading.