Milk

The cash-cow law this skill runs on: a productive asset yields a recurring stream — you draw from it, you don't slaughter it. harvest reaps the SESSION-field once at end-of-cycle; milk taps a discrete ASSET, now, mid-session, again whenever it produces more. The asset is the cow; you don't consume it, you milk it. The non-negotiable that keeps it on the flywheel and not strip-mining: every drop DEPOSITS into the same stores harvest writes to — so milk feeds capitalize.

The ONE rule that keeps this from being a dump: nothing enters a durable store unless it clears the four-part gate — Reusable + Non-trivial + Specific + Verified — AND a "search existing first" check. Before writing any finding/decision/lesson, grep the existing store for a near-duplicate; if one exists, UPDATE it, don't add a twin. A milk run that produces 20 raw notes has failed; one that deposits 3 gated, deduped, addressable assets has succeeded.

Two guards on scope (this is what keeps milk distinct from harvest and taste):

• Not the ambient session. Milk is for a DISCRETE asset you point at. If $ARGUMENTS is effectively "this session" at session end, REFUSE and redirect to /harvest — that's harvest's job, and milk must not grade the session, touch build_log.md, or advance the session counter.
• Not taste, not facts. If you hit strong taste signal (the asset reveals how the user judges), hand off to /taste induce — don't write TASTE.md. If you hit a re-learned project fact, hand to /burn rent.

/milk asset <path|url|description> (default)

Squeeze one external/internal asset for durable value. Progressive summarization, not one-shot — distill in passes so a 200-msg thread or a 40-page PDF doesn't collapse to mush:

1. Locate + chunk. Resolve the asset (a file, a URL to fetch, a repo path, a pasted thread). Large asset → chunk it; spawn subagents per chunk so the raw bytes never sit in main context — only distilled returns do.
2. Analyze along fixed value dimensions (the same every run, so yield is comparable): architecture/structure · non-obvious patterns worth stealing · gotchas/failure-modes · reusable ideas · claims worth verifying · prompts/code worth saving.
3. Distill in layers per chunk: gist → the bolded core → the ONE deployable move. Keep the deployable move; that's the yield, the rest is scaffolding.
4. Gate, dedupe, then ROUTE the yield into existing stores (this is the differentiator vs a generic analyzer — it doesn't dead-end in chat):
   • durable learning → private/findings/Finding_<NNN>_*.md (next free ID), TAGGED with the source asset, in the established ## What Was Learned / ## Evidence / ## Implications shape.
   • a choice this asset forces/settles → private/decisions/Decision_<NNN>_*.md.
   • a recurring/architectural lesson → the project memory/ (+ a MEMORY.md index line).
   • an open question the asset raises → stage for /capitalize compound (a queued task), don't pin it here.
   • publishable gold (a clean reusable pattern → /snip; a stat/insight that lands → /card) — stage the draft, disclosure + secrets gate FIRST, nothing auto-posts.
   • a prompt worth reusing → /prompt save.
5. Report + re-milk pointer. What was deposited (paths + IDs), what was gated out and why, what was handed off. Note where the asset still has unmilked yield, so a later /milk asset <same> resumes from there rather than re-squeezing the top.

/milk consolidate [N sessions]

The cross-session yield: roll up what N sessions of deposits ADD UP TO — the synthesis step the archive lacks (MEMORY.md is an index, not a thesis). Spawn a subagent to read the per-session findings/+decisions/ across the newest N (default the project's full set), then apply the four-verb consolidation vocabulary, surfacing each for approval (never auto-commit):

• NEW — an emergent truth no single session states but several imply (theory-grade; the "what is now true" layer).
• UPDATE — supersede a stale finding/decision with a freshness-checked newer one.
• DELETE — prune refuted/contradicted capital, BUT carry the failure forward as a "don't re-try" note (a dead end is high-value capital, not noise).
• PROMOTE — elevate the repeatedly-useful (≥2 occurrences) into a standing artifact via /capitalize compound (roadmap/guardrail/queued task). Gate every promotion (Reusable+Non-trivial+Specific+Verified). Report the new higher-order truths, the supersessions, and the prune-with-carry-forward list.

Rules

• Squeeze, don't slaughter: the source asset is never consumed or altered; milk only reads it and deposits derivatives.
• Re-runnable by design: a re-milk of the same asset must extend, not duplicate — search existing first makes that real.
• Mid-session always; never requires the session to end. If you find yourself grading the session, you're in harvest's lane — stop and redirect.