Imported from willfell/sauce (platform/test/seed-vault/.claude/skills/cowork/find-missing-people/SKILL.md). Install upstream with npx skills add willfell/sauce --skill find-missing-people. Copyright stays with the author.

cowork:find-missing-people

[!warning]+ CRITICAL: output path (v0.91.0) This orchestrator writes person-note stubs to:

spice/people/<basename>.md

ONE file per missing person. Files are USER-OWNED after creation; this skill never overwrites existing notes. DO NOT write atomic notes from this orchestrator — it does NOT produce a cowork-cadence atomic note. The only writes are person-note stubs + an optional vault-config.md update (when user opts to also promote discovered people to engagement.inner_circle_people).

Path safety: .bak backups per landmine #12 when modifying vault-config.md. Never overwrite existing spice/people/<name>.md files (pre-check existence at write time).

Complementary to cowork:discover-people (microscope-extraction first slice). discover-people populates inner_circle_people from microscope prose + sibling tables + vault-config structured fields. find-missing-people fills the GAP between what's emitted and what exists: atomic notes (morning-briefing / eod-review / etc.) emit [[Name]] wikilinks for people surfaced from memory ticks + gather output. When the target spice/people/<Name>.md doesn't exist, Obsidian renders the wikilink dim. This skill scans recent atomic notes for those dim-wikilink targets and offers to batch-create stubs.

Inputs

{
  engagement_id?: string   // optional; default-if-one, ask-if-many
  days_back?: number       // optional; default 30
}

Pre-flight

1. Vault routing. Use Skill cowork:check-vault-routing with { required: ["obsidian"] }. Not "ready" → emit Notice and exit.

2. Resolve target engagement. Read <vault>/spice/cowork/context/vault-config.md. Resolve engagement via input or default-if-one or ask-if-many (identical to cowork:discover-people's pre-flight Step 2). Capture engagement, engagement_id, vaultConfigBody, current_inner_circle (via cowork:discover-people-helper.parseCurrentInnerCircle).

3. Resolve date window. Use cowork:date-context to get today (YYYY-MM-DD). Compute days_back = input.days_back || 30. Build the date range = today's date - days_back through today.

Discover

4. Enumerate atomic notes. For each date in the date range:

   • Compute the path spice/cowork/daily/<YYYY>/<MM-Month>/<YYYY-MM-DD>/ (substitute from date-context shape).
   • List files via mcp__obsidian__obsidian_list_files_in_dir. Treat not-found as empty.
   • For each .md file in the dir, capture as noteSurfaces[] entry {path, body (read via mcp__obsidian__obsidian_get_file_contents), date}.

5. Aggregate wikilinks. Require the pure helper:

   const FMP = require("<workshop>/platform/blueprints/cowork/helpers/find-missing-people-helper.js");

   • candidatesRaw = FMP.aggregateWikilinksAcrossNotes(noteSurfaces) — dedups + tracks surface_count + first_seen + last_seen + surfaced_in[].
   • For each candidate.name, apply person-shape filter: personCandidates = candidatesRaw.filter(c => FMP.filterToPersonShapedWikilinks([c.name]).length > 0). This drops path-shaped ([[spice/cowork/...]]), embedded references, .md extensions, abbreviations (AWS, EMS), cards (Cap1 Platinum, SCHEELS), products (GitHub, iMCP), and known non-person nouns.

6. Enumerate existing person notes. Call mcp__obsidian__obsidian_list_files_in_dir for spice/people/. Capture file basenames (strip .md). Capture as existing_basenames[].

7. Filter to missing. missing = FMP.filterToMissingPeople(personCandidates, existing_basenames). The result is the set of candidate names whose spice/people/<name>.md does NOT exist.

Review

8. Compose review table. tableMd = FMP.composeReviewTable(missing). Print to chat. Table groups by surface-count tier (HIGH > 5; MEDIUM 2-5; LOW = 1) with columns # | Name | Mentions | First seen | Last seen | Sources.

9. Ask user (batch confirm):

   Apply these N actions? Respond with one of:
     - "y"             → create all listed stubs
     - "n"             → exit without writes
     - "skip 3,7,12"   → create all EXCEPT listed rows
   

   Parse response. On n → emit Notice cowork:find-missing-people exited without writes + stop. On y → all proposed candidates apply. On skip <list> → drop named rows from the apply set.

Apply

10. Create person-note stubs. For each candidate in apply_set:

    • Pre-check existence via mcp__obsidian__obsidian_get_file_contents on spice/people/<candidate.name>.md. If exists, log Notice cowork:find-missing-people: spice/people/<name>.md already exists; skipping and continue.
    • If absent: stubMd = FMP.composePersonNoteStubFromSurfaces(candidate). Write to spice/people/<candidate.name>.md via mcp__obsidian__obsidian_put_content.

11. Optional inner-circle promotion. Ask user: Promote any of these to engagement '<engagement_id>'.inner_circle_people? (y/n/skip <rows>). On y: collect promoted names; on skip: drop named rows. If non-empty:

    • Back up vault-config: cp <vault>/spice/cowork/context/vault-config.md <vault>/spice/cowork/context/vault-config.md.bak (landmine #12 backup convention).
    • updated = DPH.composeUpdatedVaultConfig(vaultConfigBody, engagement_id, promoted_names) (uses cowork:discover-people-helper's v0.90.3 fixed function — handles inline-empty arrays + preserves closing fence).
    • Write back via mcp__obsidian__obsidian_put_content.

Report

12. Compose final report. reportMd = FMP.composeReport({applied, skipped, scanned_count: noteSurfaces.length, days_back, engagement_id}). Print to chat. Emit final Notice: cowork:find-missing-people complete -- <N applied> applied, <M skipped> skipped for engagement <id> (scanned <X> atomic notes over last <Y> days).

Idempotence + re-run

• Person-note stubs pre-check existence; never overwrite.
• vault-config inner_circle_people append (when user opts in) dedups via composeUpdatedVaultConfig.
• Re-runs the next day will only surface NEW dim wikilinks (today's previously-promoted names now resolve).

Sibling-file safety (landmine #12)

vault-config.md is materialized once + USER-OWNED. Before modification (Step 11 only): Bash cp <file> <file>.bak per landmine #12. Person-note files are CREATED fresh (no existing user content to back up).

Dependencies

• cowork:check-vault-routing (pre-flight Step 1) — required
• cowork:date-context (Step 3) — required

Helper: platform/blueprints/cowork/helpers/find-missing-people-helper.js (pure, materialized to spice/cowork/helpers/find-missing-people-helper.js on consumer vaults per the canonical spice/cowork/helpers/... + tag: platform pattern).

Also requires cowork:discover-people-helper (via require) for composeUpdatedVaultConfig in Step 11 optional path AND for parseCurrentInnerCircle in pre-flight Step 2.

Outputs

• Side-effect writes (Steps 10-11): new person-note stubs under spice/people/; optional vault-config update with .bak backup.
• Stdout: review table (Step 8), report (Step 12).
• Notice: final completion confirmation.

Errors

Reference

• Canonical design: Docs/plans/2026-06-05-v0.91.0-find-missing-people-design.md
• Sibling skill: cowork:discover-people (microscope-extraction first slice; v0.28.0)
• Helper: platform/blueprints/cowork/helpers/find-missing-people-helper.js
• HC sub-asserts: HC-V0910-A1..G1 (helper) + HC-V0910-SKILL-A1 (this SKILL.md)