Imported from ethosengine/elohim (.agents/skills/memory-kit/SKILL.md). Install upstream with npx skills add ethosengine/elohim --skill memory-kit. Copyright stays with the author.

Memory Kit — Hygiene-Sweep Cadence (Librarian-Solo)

Project memory lives at /projects/elohim/.claude/memory/ — git-tracked, team-shareable, recoverable from a fresh clone. The harness-conventional path at /projects/.claude-config/projects/-projects-elohim/memory/ is a symlink to that primary, so native auto-memory writes land in the repo rather than in a per-machine store. This kit tends the MEMORY.md index and its typed topic files, fixes drift, surfaces archive candidates, and audits the always-loaded surfaces. It does not replace native auto-memory — native memory stays Claude-self-managed and LIGHT (non-obvious cross-session facts only); durable architecture, vision, and wisdom graduate to the managed artifacts this kit tends rather than piling up in native memory (the managed-surface edit discipline, .claude/memory/feedback_managed_surface_edit_discipline.md).

Pollution regulation for agentic-developer context

The kit's governance has a left-shifted half. The sweep (this kit's tools) is remediation — it cleans drift after the fact. The edit-time hooks are prevention — they keep new text born-governed at the point of emission, so the emitting directory carries the cost of its own output instead of every downstream reader paying the noise. Two ends of one pipe: the gate narrows what the sweep must clean.

The edit-time layer (the why — full inventory in The Hooks below):

• .epr-meta compose-gates — cascading per-directory manifests; the epr-meta-resolver PreToolUse hook gates new docs against the directory's declared contract. The canon step of flag → agent → canon → stasis, co-located and executable: an agent that hits a drift authors the rule that flags it for the next agent, right where it bit. Author with the elohim-epr-metafile skill — whose whole subject is choosing the lightest signal that converges instead of nagging. [[project_epr_meta_compose_gate]]
• managed-surface-context.py (PreToolUse) injects a surface's discipline before the edit; the PostToolUse drift/cite signals nudge new surfaces toward born-linked. [[feedback_managed_surface_edit_discipline]]

Caught before a byte compiles — left of the compile/CI loop, the cheapest point on the gradient that ends in a RED coherence verdict. And distributed: the rule lives in the directory it governs, composed nearest-wins up the tree — no central registry.

Relationship to /memory-ceremony

The memory team has two distinct cadences. Confusing them is what made the old 6-wave ceremony bloat:

Audit numbers (CLAUDE.md OVER-BUDGET count, cleanup-scan flags, Surface:Archive ratio, MEMORY.md byte size) move here, NOT in the ceremony. The ceremony's deliverable is a rewrite; this kit's deliverable is hygiene. They are sibling rhythms — one can run without the other. A third sibling, the memory-stasis-loop workflow, is the unified auto-trigger that drains every memory discipline back to stasis once a heavy-dev week has accumulated drift (see /hygiene-sweep cadence below).

The frame, after Pawel Huryn's article ("How I Finally Sorted My Claude Code Memory"):

Related skills (extracted from this kit on 2026-05-13):

• /converge — synthesis layer (vision×readiness scoring + next-actions menu). Reads memory-kit reports; produces the session-start handoff.
• Dev-dashboard scripts at .claude/scripts/dev-dashboard/ — plan-status.py and sprint-distill.py. Useful, not memory-hygiene.

Spec reference: genesis/docs/content/elohim-protocol/architecture/2026-05-10-memory-lifecycle-design.md — the comet-shaped memory model and lifecycle primitives. Also see genesis/docs/superpowers/specs/2026-05-13-historian-and-epic-timeline.md for the three-perspective frame (history/roadmap/development) this kit sits inside. The deterministic stasis/coverage tier is governed by the placement contract at genesis/docs/PLACEMENT.md.

When to invoke: weekly hygiene pass, before kicking off a major /shift, when "memory says X exists but X is gone" surfaces in agent output, or whenever the corpus feels noisy.

Architecture

• Scripts live at .claude/scripts/memory-kit/<tool>.py. Pure Python stdlib; no external deps.
• Outputs land at .claude/memory-kit/<YYYY-MM-DD>/<tool>-<artifact>.md. Shared dated directory across all tools (legacy name retained for /converge and dev-dashboard compatibility). This process-artifact tier is comet-retained by memkit-retention.py: the HEAD stays full, the TAIL compacts to _digest.md, and aged entries drop to a one-line TRAJECTORY.md row. TRAJECTORY.md is the durable spine — older dated bulk is recoverable from git history, not a permanent walk-back surface.
• Archive destination (cleanup only): .claude/archive/<YYYY-MM-DD>/<original-relative-path>. Mirrors repo structure so trajectory stays walkable backward.
• Skill entry point: this single skill, deferred-loaded. Not always-active — pull out periodically.

The Eight Tools

1. cleanup — archive stale specs/plans/memory

python3 .claude/scripts/memory-kit/cleanup-scan.py     # Phase 1: deterministic scan
# (judgment subagent dispatched as Phase 2 — see below)
python3 .claude/scripts/memory-kit/cleanup-apply.py    # Phase 3: operator-approved archive

Three-phase workflow:

1. Scan (deterministic) — surfaces archive candidates (status: superseded, completed plans, stale proposals) and dangling-reference flags. Outputs cleanup-proposals.md.
2. Judge (LLM + semantic search) — dispatch a general-purpose subagent: read cleanup-proposals.md, investigate each candidate (semantic search for successor specs, recent git activity, dev-intent mentions), classify as ARCHIVE / BACKLOG / KEEP-FRESH / OPERATOR-CALL. Writes cleanup-proposals-judged.md (refined proposals with Accept checkboxes only on ARCHIVE) and cleanup-backlog-refresh.md (still-relevant unfinished work). The judge auto-classifies the unambiguous archives and reserves OPERATOR-CALL for genuine forks — the apply gate stays operator-approved regardless. This is the decide-clear-calls discipline instantiated ([[feedback-decide-clear-calls-not-over-ask]]): the judge settles the obvious archives itself and parks only the real trade-offs the operator owns, rather than routing every candidate up.
3. Apply — operator marks - [x] Accept; apply moves entries to dated archive. Trajectory-preserving, not delete.

Boundary: only modifies via moves, never deletes. The archived items remain queryable for future historian work (see related spec). The scan's stray-doc census is the remedial counterpart to the .epr-meta compose-gate — the gate keeps new docs born-governed, the census catches residue already on disk.

2. path-update — propagate renames into stale citations

python3 .claude/scripts/memory-kit/path-update-scan.py    # detect renames + scan
python3 .claude/scripts/memory-kit/path-update-apply.py   # apply approved replacements

git log --diff-filter=R --name-status for the last year captures rename pairs. For each, ripgrep finds documents still citing the OLD path. Plus inferred renames via suffix-drop heuristics. Outputs path-update-proposals.md with - [ ] Accept checkboxes per pair.

Caveats: text.replace is unscoped — operator should spot-check before bulk-accepting. Suffix-drop heuristic is hand-curated.

Boundary: only modifies path strings; never archives, never changes content meaning. (Doc-to-doc cites are content-addressed envelopes that survive moves on their own — see tool 8 — so path-update is for raw-path citations, not for the cite-graph.)

3. dedupe-memory — surface merge candidates

python3 .claude/scripts/memory-kit/dedupe-memory-scan.py [--threshold 0.30]

TF-IDF cosine similarity across MEMORY topic files. Clusters pairs above threshold. Outputs dedupe-clusters.md with similarity scores and shared key terms.

Calibration: default threshold is 0.55 per spec, but the corpus is diverse — practical threshold is closer to 0.30. The TF-IDF cosine here is a pure-stdlib approximation of semantic dedup over the flat topic files; the embedding-backed equivalent for the palace store is the MemPalace substrate's mempalace_check_duplicate ([[reference_mempalace]]), which this stdlib method deliberately stands in for where no embedding index is present.

Boundary: read-only surface. Does NOT perform merges. Merge is a future tool that consumes these clusters; see the lifecycle spec on the c ≈ 0.6-0.95 lossiness coefficient.

4. memory-review — health diagnostic on the auto-memory complement

python3 .claude/scripts/memory-kit/memory-review.py

Read-only diagnostic. Reports:

• MEMORY.md line count vs 200-budget (entries past line 200 are invisible to Claude)
• Topic file count grouped by type prefix (feedback_/project_/reference_/user_)
• Growth — entries touched in last 7d / 30d
• Stale candidates — files untouched > 90 days
• Index-vs-files drift — entries in MEMORY.md with no backing file; backing files missing from MEMORY.md

Boundary: read-only. Does not propose mutations; surfaces "is the memory layer healthy?" rather than "what should change?". Operator acts on findings via direct MEMORY.md edits or by running cleanup-scan.py.

5. claude-md-audit — signal-triggered CLAUDE.md re-alignment pass

python3 .claude/scripts/memory-kit/claude-md-audit.py [--threshold 3.0] [--no-reset]

CLAUDE.md files are gospel (always-loaded, treated as authoritative) — until they drift. This tool is the re-alignment pass for bringing them back in line with project reality. It is invoked when drift signals have accumulated, not on a fixed cadence. ("Re-alignment pass," not "ceremony" — the four-lens substrate-currency rite is the only thing this kit calls a ceremony; see Relationship to /memory-ceremony.)

Two-part architecture (signal accumulator + re-alignment pass):

1. PostToolUse drift-signal hook (.claude/hooks/claude-md-drift-signal.py) runs after every Edit/Write. It walks up from the edited file to find every enclosing CLAUDE.md scope (a file edit inside doorway/ counts against CLAUDE.md AND doorway/CLAUDE.md). It increments direct_edits and scope_edits counters in .claude/memory-kit/claude-md-drift.json and re-computes a drift_score every RESCORE_EVERY_N_EDITS calls. Cheap path: single-digit ms.

2. claude-md-audit.py (this re-alignment pass) walks every CLAUDE.md in the repo, computes each file's direct scope (files in its dir-tree minus descendant CLAUDE.md subscopes), and classifies by drift signal + content patterns + fit:

   • MAYBE-UNNECESSARY — tiny scope (≤3 files, no sub-CLAUDE.md descendants) with a non-trivial doc; consider deleting
   • UNDER-WROTE — claude_md_lines / expected_lines < 0.4; the doc isn't covering the directory's complexity
   • OVER-WROTE — claude_md_lines / expected_lines > 2.5; the doc overspecifies for the scope
   • DRIFTED-FACTUAL — cited paths/commands no longer exist
   • DRIFTED-NORMATIVE — drift_score ≥ threshold (signal accumulated)
   • OVER-BUDGET — line count exceeds 200
   • OVER-IMPERATIVE — contains "always X / never Y / must Z" rules without a because… / rationale anchor within ±3 lines
   • FRESH — none of the above

   Fit calculation: expected_lines = base(20) + distinct_extensions × 8 + scope_files × 0.5 (capped at 200). Re-tunable via FIT_TUNABLES. Fit classifications take priority over drift-only signals — a directory that may not need a CLAUDE.md at all is the highest-value finding.

   MISSING-CLAUDE-MD detection: a separate pass walks the tree looking for directories with substantial content (≥15 files OR ≥4 subdirs, ≥2 distinct complexity extensions) whose nearest ancestor CLAUDE.md is ≥2 levels up. These are candidates for writing a new CLAUDE.md. Submodules (read from .gitmodules) are excluded.

   Opt-out via .no-claude.md markers: when a flagged directory genuinely doesn't need a CLAUDE.md (static assets, parent-doc-is-close-enough, etc.), drop a .no-claude.md file in the directory with the rationale. The audit surfaces these in their own "Opted out" section so the decision chain stays auditable; the directory is excluded from candidacy until the marker is removed. Marker format: optional YAML frontmatter (decided, revisit-if) + markdown body explaining the reasoning. The audit uses _lib.frontmatter to parse markers and renders a one-line rationale excerpt.

   After producing the report, resets each file's counters so future signals are net-new (use --no-reset to preview without resetting).

Output: .claude/memory-kit/<YYYY-MM-DD>/claude-md-audit.md

Trust-compute gradient: the accumulator's compute is layered — by default it does the cheapest work (counter increments). It can be tuned to do more (full git-diff in scope, change-velocity tracking) when signal is noisy or time-since-audit is long. Weights in SCORE_WEIGHTS are re-tunable without changing the protocol.

Boundary: read-only audit. Operator decides whether to revise any flagged CLAUDE.md. Never auto-writes.

6. agent-audit — agent catalog quality

python3 .claude/scripts/memory-kit/agent-audit.py

Parallel to skill-audit but for .claude/agents/*.md. Agent metadata (name + description) is always-loaded into context; bodies encode role + tool grants + model assignments and drift like any doc surface. Checks:

• VAGUE-DESCRIPTION: too-short, generic phrases ("use this agent for…"), no trigger/when language
• TRIGGER-OVERLAP: distinctive token overlap with sibling agents (may indicate competing trigger surfaces)
• STALE-MTIME: untouched > 90 days
• DRIFTED-FACTUAL: dead multi-component path citations (bare filenames excluded to limit false positives)
• OVER-IMPERATIVE: "always/never/must" without rationale (same regex as claude-md-audit; excludes code fences)
• TOOLS-MISMATCH: tools declared in frontmatter but not referenced in body — a known durable false-positive class, not a refinement-in-progress. An agent prompt legitimately describes role and judgment, not tool mechanics, so a granted-but-unmentioned tool is expected rather than a defect to tune away. The librarian treats it as low-signal by design.
• MISSING-MODEL: no model: field (inheritance from parent is usually unintended)

Boundary: read-only diagnostic. Operator decides which agents to revise.

7. skill-audit — skill catalog quality

python3 .claude/scripts/memory-kit/skill-audit.py

Scans .claude/skills/*/SKILL.md. Three issue classes: vague descriptions (too short / generic / no Use when framing), trigger-overlap pairs, stale-by-mtime (>90 days).

Why this is in memory-kit: skill metadata is always-loaded into Claude's context. Vague descriptions cost tokens and clutter trigger-matching. Auditing skill descriptions is auditing the always-on context budget — the same surface MEMORY.md occupies.

Boundary: read-only diagnostic. Doesn't rewrite descriptions or merge skills.

8. memory-coherence-audit — keep memory current with the code it cites

python3 .claude/scripts/memory-kit/memory-coherence-audit.py             # audit + rebuild cites-index
git diff --name-only origin/dev | \
  python3 .claude/scripts/memory-kit/memory-coherence-audit.py --changed -   # what changed re-opens which memory

Memory used to be the one substrate lacking edge-invalidation on source change: a memory entry that said "see path_service.rs" had no machine-walkable link, so when the code moved the lesson silently went stale. This tool closes that edge — it is the reconciliation-controller pattern (the build-graph's graph-walker.mjs, sync-check.py) applied to memory. The capability is the in-flight memory↔code coherence plane (design 2026-05-28-in-flight-memory-coherence-design.md).

Two classes of cites: — and they behave differently:

• Code/spec/scenario subscriptions (the in-flight edge): a memory entry may declare an optional top-level cites: list of repo-relative paths or globs whose change should re-open it — the memory-side mirror of a story's feature:/anchors_epics:. These stay raw paths on purpose: they are a husky-consumable changed-file matcher, not a doc pointer.

  ---
  name: project_rea_compute_commitment_primitive
  description: ...
  metadata:
    type: project
  cites:
    - genesis/docs/architecture/rea-compute-commitment-primitive.md
    - elohim/holochain/dna/mishpat/**
  ---

• Doc-to-doc cites (cross-references between managed .md surfaces): these are content-addressed envelopes (<slug> | desc | fingerprint) generated by cite-gen — never hand-written — that survive file moves (a rename never breaks an inbound cite). The cite-{gen,describe,propagate}.py + cites-migrate.py family maintains them; the coherence audit and the semantic-links skill share the verdict vocabulary. See .claude/skills/semantic-links/SKILL.md.

When you write or revise a memory entry that leans on specific code, specs, or .feature scenarios, add the subscription paths to cites:. Rollout is organic — seed entries already carry it; the audit's CITE-CANDIDATE finding nominates entries that have code paths in their body but no cites: yet.

Modes:

• audit (default): verifies every cites: path/envelope still resolves and rebuilds .claude/memory-kit/cites-index.json (the index the in-flight hook reads). Report at .claude/memory-kit/<date>/memory-coherence-audit.{json,md}.
• changed-files (--changed - from stdin, or --since <git-ref>): glob-matches a changed-file list against every entry's cites: and emits STALE-CANDIDATE — "entry X cites Y which just changed; re-verify." graph-walker.mjs's walk shape applied to memory nodes; usable from a husky pre-push consumer.

Verdict vocabulary (shared with semantic-links):

• DEAD-CITE — the target no longer resolves; re-point or remove.
• HELD-CITE — the target is a held/ doc (scope-narrowed off the plate); it still resolves — do NOT treat as dead.
• STALE-CANDIDATE — fingerprint drift on a doc cite, or a subscribed path just changed; re-verify the lesson.
• CITE-FORMAT-CANDIDATE — a legacy raw-path doc cite; run cites-migrate.py to drain it into a content-addressed envelope (the cites_legacy drain).
• CITE-CANDIDATE — a body that names code paths but carries no cites: yet.

Boundary: read-only over memory; the only writes are the derived report + cites-index (single-writer projection). Never edits a memory entry's lesson — it surfaces which lessons to re-verify; the librarian/operator decides.

Design: genesis/docs/superpowers/specs/2026-05-28-in-flight-memory-coherence-design.md.

The Stasis & Coverage Tier (deterministic, no-LLM)

A second toolset sits alongside the eight hygiene tools: a deterministic state machine over the doc + memory surfaces, governed by the placement contract at genesis/docs/PLACEMENT.md. Where the hygiene tier asks "is this surface clean?", the stasis tier asks "is every artifact at a known position + state, and is the surface trending toward stasis (pressure dirs empty, no dumps, every file has a next state)?" Read it once; then read the ledger first on every sweep.

Measurement vs gate. The tier separates reading the coverage from enforcing it: placement-audit.py --stasis is the instrument (the per-dimension coverage score you read), and context-ratchet.py is the gate (a baseline that fails on regression and ratchets up). The spec-coherence-index → prep-brainstorm pair is the same tier facing FRONT — the deterministic compose-from-canon preload that runs before a /brainstorm opens, so a new design starts from prior art and the current pressure budget rather than a blank page.

Boundary: all deterministic (no-LLM) and read-only by default; the writes are derived reports, the ledger, the cites-index, the coverage baseline, and operator-gated git mvs in scope-reconcile. The lifecycle, the four verification states (VERIFIED-STABLE / CLAIMED-ONLY / REGRESSED / BLOCKED-BY-ENV), and the home taxonomy all live in genesis/docs/PLACEMENT.md. (delivery-status-distribution.py physically lives in this kit's script dir but is delivery-stasis domain — driven by /delivery-stasis, not this kit; it is listed here only so a reader scanning the directory isn't surprised.)

The Hooks

The hooks split by job. The always-on MEMORY.md injector primes context, and the pickup-time semantic surfacing hook complements it with a once-per-session palace recall. The rest are the edit-time source-regulation layer — they fire for the emitting agent at the moment of a Write/Edit so the pollution is internalized at the source (see Pollution Regulation for Agentic-Developer Context above): PreToolUse injectors that gate or inject discipline before the edit lands, and PostToolUse hooks that project derived surfaces and accumulate drift toward the audits.

PreToolUse Memory Hook

.claude/hooks/pre-tool-memory.py is registered with matcher "*" in .claude/settings.json. It injects the first 200 lines of MEMORY.md into context before the first tool call of each session / subagent process tree. The /tmp/claude-memory-loaded-<ppid> flag file gates it to fire once per process tree.

Why this matters: Claude Code's SessionStart hook fires once per session and does not reach subagents or survive context compaction. The PreToolUse hook covers both gaps. Cost is single-digit ms per tool call after the flag is set.

If overhead becomes a concern: drop back to SessionStart-only by removing the * matcher entry from PreToolUse in settings.json.

Pickup-Time Semantic Surfacing Hook

.claude/hooks/pickup-semantic-surfacing.py (registered in settings.json on both UserPromptSubmit and PreToolUse) is the PICKUP-time complement to the always-on MEMORY.md injector: where pre-tool-memory.py injects the static index, this fires once per session on the pickup vocabulary — eligible on prompts 1-3, or on the first search-shaped tool call — and pulls a semantic recall from the MemPalace store. The engine is the MemPalace CLI, not the MCP (the MCP is absent in the main session), gated first by a millisecond mempalace-currency.py --status staleness check and then a ~3s mempalace search. Injection contract: below the cosine floor (COSINE_FLOOR = 0.35) it is a silent no-op; a stale index degrades to a banner rather than blocking. Read-only; never mutates.

PreToolUse .epr-meta Compose-Gate Hook

.claude/hooks/epr-meta-resolver.py (matcher: Edit|Write; resolver lib _lib/epr_meta.py) resolves the cascade of directory-local .epr-meta manifests above the edited path and returns a compose-gate verdict. Authoring a NEW .md under a governed root must satisfy that directory's declared frontmatter contract or the write is DENIED; editing an existing file is not gated (new: true). A malformed manifest is strict-but-recoverable — the subtree downgrades deny→ask and the .epr-meta itself stays editable, because an unvalidated manifest is proposed governance (Private-reach intent), never binding deny. This is the born-governed leg of edit-time source regulation; author manifests with the elohim-epr-metafile skill. See [[project_epr_meta_compose_gate]].

PreToolUse Managed-Surface Context Hook

.claude/hooks/managed-surface-context.py (matcher: Edit|Write, timeout 3s) injects a managed-memory surface's discipline + exact tooling BEFORE an edit lands on it — gospel CLAUDE.mds, specs/plans, doc-roots, memory entries, a2o features, stories, skills/agents, the axis manifests. Scope comes from _lib/managed_surfaces.py, the single edit-time registry (surface class → discipline → tooling → cite-graph membership) that cite-seal-signal.py and the cite-gen/migrate sweeps also consult — scope is defined once, never re-hardcoded per tool, and a stale cite is routed to the re-verify queue (--refresh), never left silently dead (the managed-surface edit discipline, [[feedback_managed_surface_edit_discipline]]). Fires once per (file, process tree); fail-open. Design: genesis/docs/superpowers/specs/2026-06-05-managed-surface-edit-discipline-design.md.

PostToolUse Drift-Signal Hook

.claude/hooks/claude-md-drift-signal.py (matcher: Edit|Write, timeout 2s) accumulates drift signal for claude-md-audit (section 5). Best-effort: never blocks the tool call. See section 5 for the layered-compute design.

PostToolUse Memory-Coherence Signal Hook

.claude/hooks/memory-coherence-signal.py (matcher: Edit|Write, timeout 2s) is the in-flight accumulator for memory-coherence-audit (section 8). When an edited file matches a memory entry's cites: glob (via the cached .claude/memory-kit/cites-index.json), it bumps that entry's counter in .claude/memory-kit/memory-coherence-drift.json. The librarian surfaces accumulated counts during /hygiene-sweep ("N entries cite code that changed since last verified") and resets them. Best-effort; never blocks. If the index doesn't exist yet, the hook is dormant until the first memory-coherence-audit.py run builds it.

PostToolUse Memory-Index Projector Hook

.claude/scripts/memory-kit/memory-index-projector.py --hook (matcher: Edit|Write, registered directly in settings.json — the hook IS the script's thin transport). MEMORY.md is a GENERATED projection of each topic file's title: + description: frontmatter (decided 2026-07-02, after a hand-maintained index bloated past the harness load cap and loaded truncated — the context-leak class). On any write under .claude/memory/, the hook re-projects the index; per-entry violations (missing/overlong description) and over-soft-budget land as a snapshot in .claude/memory-kit/memory-index-drift.json, which cleanup-pressure.py counts toward the cleanup: gate — budget pressure escalates to the memory-stasis-loop on the same flag→canon→stasis rails as every other accumulator. Budgets: soft 20,000B (start consolidating) / hard 24,000B (the harness cap with headroom); entry discipline: title: ≤ 80 chars, description: one line ≤ 200 (target ≤ 160). The co-located .claude/memory/.epr-meta carries the compose-gate half: new memory files are DENIED at birth without name/title/description, and hand-writes to MEMORY.md get an ask pointing back to the projector. Budget relief is population work — umbrella entries (index: false on folded members) and graduation — never index hand-editing.

PostToolUse Placement-Drift & Map-Currency Signal Hooks

.claude/hooks/placement-drift-signal.py and .claude/hooks/map-drift-signal.py (matcher: Edit|Write, timeout 2s) are the two remaining activity accumulators the cleanup: gate reads. placement-drift-signal.py queues a decompose-due entry in placement-drift.json when an edit lands a terminal status (landed/superseded/abandoned) into a doc still living plan-shaped in an ACTIVE home (genesis/docs/superpowers/{specs,plans}, genesis/docs/plans); it self-heals when the status is edited back to non-terminal. map-drift-signal.py bumps map-currency-drift.json when an architecture seed under genesis/docs/content/elohim-protocol/architecture/*.md changes while MAP.md itself is untouched, and resets to zero when MAP.md is edited (the walk just got refreshed). Both surface at SessionStart through placement-audit.py --headline (the decompose-due line and the path: currency line). Best-effort; never block.

Born-Linked Signal Hooks

.claude/hooks/cite-seal-signal.py (PostToolUse Edit|Write) and .claude/hooks/claude-md-structural-signal.py (PreToolUse Bash — it inspects the command string for mv/git mv/cp -r/rm -rf/mkdir structural ops) are the born-linked nudges of the edit-time layer. cite-seal accumulates signal when a managed surface is edited without a sealed cite; claude-md-structural bumps a structural_edits counter on the affected CLAUDE.md scopes when a directory moves/copies/removes — weighted heavier than a plain edit, since a moved directory can strand the CLAUDE.md describing its old shape. Both are best-effort and never block; their counters feed the audits in this kit on the same flag → agent → canon → stasis shape as the other accumulators.

A related PostToolUse Edit|Write accumulator, .claude/hooks/sovereignty-guard-signal.py, lives in the edit-time layer but feeds a separate loop: it accumulates governance-lexicon signal (the crypto self-sovereignty apex drift, [[feedback-identity-sovereignty-ontology-guard]]) into its own sovereignty ontology guard, and is deliberately not one of the five activity stores the cleanup: gate sums (below). It is named here so the five-store enumeration and this sixth governance signal don't read as a contradiction — different gate, same born-governed shape.

Shared Helpers (_lib/)

Pure-stdlib helpers at .claude/scripts/_lib/ for use by scripts AND hooks:

Import pattern (works from any script or hook):

from pathlib import Path
import sys
_here = Path(__file__).resolve()
for _ in range(8):
    if (_here / ".claude" / "scripts" / "_lib").is_dir():
        sys.path.insert(0, str(_here / ".claude" / "scripts"))
        break
    _here = _here.parent
from _lib import paths, store  # noqa: E402

Discipline: only extract when 3+ callers share the same pattern. Resist scope creep. New scripts use these from the start; older scripts migrate when touched. Scope lives in the registry only — never re-hardcode a surface class per hook.

/hygiene-sweep cadence

This kit's primary periodic role. Librarian-solo (no four-agent ceremony, no operator gates beyond the apply-step approvals on cleanup/path-update). Designed to keep audit numbers from regressing so the substrate-currency ceremony can focus on rewrites, not byte-budget triage.

Weekly sweep (~15 minutes) — the standard /hygiene-sweep rhythm:

1. python3 .claude/scripts/memory-kit/placement-audit.py --ledger — read the budget FIRST: per-file position + state + next-action, so the sweep drains a measured budget rather than running blind (the SessionStart MEMORY-BUDGET headline derives from --headline)
2. python3 .claude/scripts/memory-kit/memory-review.py — baseline + byte-budget check
3. python3 .claude/scripts/memory-kit/cleanup-scan.py — surface archive candidates
4. Dispatch the cleanup-judge subagent over cleanup-proposals.md
5. python3 .claude/scripts/memory-kit/path-update-scan.py
6. Review the dated .claude/memory-kit/<today>/ directory
7. Mark - [x] Accept on cleanup and path-update entries you approve
8. Run apply scripts: cleanup-apply.py → path-update-apply.py
9. genesis/scripts/memory-balance.sh — log Surface:Archive ratio + budget deltas
10. python3 .claude/scripts/memory-kit/memory-coherence-audit.py — rebuild the cites-index and surface entries whose cited code changed (the in-flight hook accumulates these into memory-coherence-drift.json between sweeps; surface and reset)

Monthly deeper sweep (add to the weekly):

• python3 .claude/scripts/memory-kit/dedupe-memory-scan.py --threshold 0.30
• python3 .claude/scripts/memory-kit/claude-md-audit.py — byte-budget + drift across all CLAUDE.md
• python3 .claude/scripts/memory-kit/agent-audit.py
• python3 .claude/scripts/memory-kit/skill-audit.py
• python3 .claude/scripts/memory-kit/substrate-currency-audit.py — flag gospel-tier drift for the next /memory-ceremony
• python3 .claude/scripts/memory-kit/story-coverage-audit.py — orphan features + leverage scores for /converge and the storyteller
• python3 .claude/scripts/memory-kit/mempalace-currency.py --status — semantic-index staleness; --remine if the clean surface drifted past the tripwire
• python3 .claude/scripts/memory-kit/context-ratchet.py — the context-coverage gate: fail on any dimension regressing below baseline, else ratchet the baseline up

Signal-driven trigger (canonical, drift-accurate). The SessionStart MEMORY-BUDGET headline carries a cleanup: gate. When it reads cleanup: ⚠ … due — roughly a week of heavy development has accumulated drift past threshold — run the memory-stasis-loop workflow, which drains every memory discipline (compaction · dumps · decompose · MAP/path · roadmap · memkit · MemPalace) back to stasis and self-resets the drift baseline. It fires at most ~once per heavy-dev week; on a quiet week the gate reads held ✅ and you skip. Under the hood the gate (cleanup-pressure.py) sums the distinct drifted items accumulated across this kit's five activity stores — placement-drift.json, map-currency-drift.json, claude-md-drift.json, memory-coherence-drift.json, and memory-index-drift.json — and reads due when that count crosses THRESHOLD (120, calibrated to ~a week of heavy development churning ~100–150 distinct docs/entries). (The governance-lexicon accumulator sovereignty-guard-signal.py is a sixth signal but feeds its own guard loop, not this gate — see Born-Linked Signal Hooks.) Running the loop's --reset zeroes those accumulators so the next week starts fresh. The cleanup: gate is the unified front door; the per-accumulator item counts are its inputs.

Before a major /shift: at minimum run placement-audit.py --ledger + cleanup + path-update + memory-review. If MEMORY.md is near budget, tighten by graduating (one canonical story carries 6+ entries) or umbrella-folding related items (index: false on folded members; the umbrella file links them) — never by hand-editing the index, which is GENERATED (memory-index-projector.py --apply). A correct re-index of orphaned-but-load-bearing entries grows the index; budget relief comes from graduation / umbrella / archive-with-pointer, never from deletion (the lifecycle spec's close-interval ≠ forget; the same gotcha is recorded under "Re-indexing orphans grows MEMORY.md" in .claude/scripts/memory-kit/CLAUDE.md).

Before a /brainstorm: run prep-brainstorm.py — the deterministic FRONT-seam preload composes prior-art (spec-coherence-index --query), the testable/blocked surface (placement-audit --focus), and the outstanding pressure budget (placement-audit --ledger) so a new design starts from canon, not a blank page.

Handoff to /converge: after a sweep, if the operator asks "what's next?", invoke /converge. It reads this kit's reports from .claude/memory-kit/<today>/ (including story-coverage-audit.json and the placement ledger) and produces the ranked next-actions menu.

Handoff to /memory-ceremony: if substrate-currency-audit.py (run as part of the sweep or separately) flags a gospel-tier surface as high-drift, the next ceremony picks it up. The hygiene sweep does NOT attempt rewrites — that's the ceremony's deliverable.

Design Principles

• Prevention over remediation (source regulation). The kit governs the context commons at two points: edit-time, where per-directory .epr-meta compose-gates and managed-surface injection keep new agentic-agent text born-governed at the emitter (Pollution Regulation for Agentic-Developer Context); and after-the-fact, where the hygiene sweep remediates the drift that slipped past. Internalizing the externality at the source is cheaper than the sweep — and cheaper than the substrate-currency ceremony's RED coherence verdict, which is the same pollution measured downstream. See [[project_epr_meta_compose_gate]] and [[feedback_managed_surface_edit_discipline]].
• Complement, don't replace. Native auto-memory is Claude-self-managed and kept LIGHT (non-obvious cross-session facts only); durable architecture / vision / wisdom graduates to the managed artifacts this kit tends rather than piling up in native memory. The boundary is firm (the 2026-06-03 pair-off; see .claude/scripts/memory-kit/CLAUDE.md).
• Deterministic-first. Seven of the eight hygiene tools are pure rule-based at the surfacing layer; only cleanup uses judgment (the Phase-2 subagent), and even that is operator-gated at apply. The entire stasis/coverage tier is deterministic (no-LLM).
• Measure, then gate. Coverage separates instrument from gate: placement-audit --stasis reads the per-dimension coverage score; context-ratchet.py enforces it (fail-on-regression, ratchet-baseline-up). Keep the reader and the gate separate — the score informs the sweep; the gate defends the floor.
• Operator-approved. No tool modifies files without an explicit - [x] Accept (or, for scope-reconcile, an operator scope decision). Even cleanup's apply step skips unchecked entries. The judge decides the clear archives itself and reserves OPERATOR-CALL for genuine forks ([[feedback-decide-clear-calls-not-over-ask]]) — operator-approved is the apply gate, not a decision-parking habit.
• Archive, never delete. Matches the lifecycle spec — close-interval is structurally distinct from forget. Archived items remain queryable; future historian work (see related spec) depends on this.
• Read-only by default. The most common interaction is "scan → review → close" without any modification. Modification is the exception. (The edit-time gates are the deliberate exception in the other direction — they act before a write, fail-open, and never mutate content; they gate or signal, they do not rewrite.)
• Trajectory-preserving. Archived items keep their original relative path under a dated directory. The process-artifact report tier is comet-retained (memkit-retention.py), with TRAJECTORY.md as the durable spine. Walking history backward stays possible.
• Signal-accumulator architecture. The accumulator → ceremony → reset shape (a cheap deterministic hook writes a ledger flag → a new flag dispatches the audit/ceremony → a re-encounter cites canon instead of re-firing → the stasis sweep resets the counter to baseline) is the project's canonical event-automation pattern ([[feedback_deterministic_flag_agent_canon_stasis_pattern]]). Extend an audit tool along this shape — never re-derive an ad-hoc accumulator, which re-invites the agent-storm-on-known-blocked-items and the tombstone-instead-of-reset failures the pattern prevents.
• Describe durable structure, not status. Every audit class and every line in this kit names stable architecture, never transient sprint/tool state ("currently noisy", "refinement candidate", "in-flight" as a status word) — the [[feedback_agent_prompts_no_process_status]] discipline, applied to the kit's own surfaces. The catalog audits (claude-md-audit, agent-audit, skill-audit) do not carry a process-status check class of their own; this discipline is enforced by hand and by the substrate-currency ceremony.
• Bounded but widened scope. The hygiene tier tends MEMORY.md + topic files + the always-loaded skill/agent/CLAUDE.md metadata; the stasis/coverage tier extends to the managed artifacts (specs, plans, genesis/docs/, genesis/data/stories/, gospel CLAUDE.mds) governed by genesis/docs/PLACEMENT.md and routed by .claude/subject-routing.yaml; the edit-time layer extends governance to any directory that carries an .epr-meta. It does not touch arbitrary application code, test files, or CI artifacts.
• Single skill entry point. This skill. Eight hygiene tools plus the stasis/coverage tier. The hooks — one always-on context injector plus the pickup-time semantic surfacing and the edit-time source-regulation layer (the PreToolUse gates and the PostToolUse drift/cite/projector accumulators inventoried in The Hooks). Deferred-loaded. Periodic invocation.

What This Kit Is NOT

• Not a general auto-merge / auto-promote consolidator (those remain future design; see the lifecycle spec). Compaction is covered: decompose.py drains specs/plans into bounded cited gap-items and the Spec/Plan Compaction Loop graduates their lessons to history/ and to canonical stories. The three-zone stasis verdict holds — the ACTIVE pile is the only shrink-target; the history/ museum is a grow-target, never force-shrunk. (No "now" / "ships" status word here on purpose — [[feedback_agent_prompts_no_process_status]].)
• Not autonomous (operator approval is structural for any file modification; the edit-time gates act before a write and never rewrite content)
• Not always-active (single skill, deferred-loaded, periodic — the hooks are the only always-resident surface, and they gate/signal rather than run the kit)
• Not the historian (pattern-aware un-archive + precedent surfacing is the historian's role; see related spec)
• Not the converge synthesizer (extracted to /converge skill 2026-05-13)
• Not the dev-dashboard (plan-status + sprint-distill moved to .claude/scripts/dev-dashboard/)

Related

• .claude/skills/converge/SKILL.md — synthesis layer; consumes memory-kit reports
• .claude/skills/semantic-links/SKILL.md — content-addressed cite envelopes (cite-gen); the doc-cite verdict vocabulary this kit shares
• .claude/skills/elohim-epr-metafile/SKILL.md — authoring guide for the .epr-meta directory-local compose-gates (the born-governed edit-time leg)
• .claude/hooks/epr-meta-resolver.py — the PreToolUse .epr-meta compose-gate resolver
• .claude/hooks/pickup-semantic-surfacing.py — the pickup-time MemPalace semantic recall hook ([[reference_mempalace]])
• .claude/memory/project_epr_meta_compose_gate.md — the compose-gate lesson ([[project_epr_meta_compose_gate]])
• .claude/memory/feedback_managed_surface_edit_discipline.md — the managed-surface edit discipline ([[feedback_managed_surface_edit_discipline]])
• genesis/docs/PLACEMENT.md — the placement contract governing the stasis/coverage tier (positions, the four verification states, the gap-item budget)
• genesis/docs/content/elohim-protocol/architecture/2026-05-10-memory-lifecycle-design.md — lifecycle primitives (the design language)
• genesis/docs/superpowers/specs/2026-05-13-historian-and-epic-timeline.md — the three-perspective frame this kit sits inside; the historian role
• genesis/docs/content/elohim-protocol/living_memory/epic.md — narrative on what living memory means in the protocol
• .claude/hooks/pre-tool-memory.py — the PreToolUse memory injector
• .claude/hooks/load-project-context.py — the SessionStart context loader (complementary, broader scope)
• .claude/memory-kit/<YYYY-MM-DD>/ — dated outputs (operator review surface; comet-retained via memkit-retention.py, TRAJECTORY.md is the durable spine)
• .claude/archive/<YYYY-MM-DD>/ — cleanup destination (preserves trajectory; future historian indexes this)