audit-para

Audit PARA

Hybrid workflow: Phase 1 is a read-only audit pass that produces a severity-grouped report. Phase 2 is an interactive fix flow — nothing writes without explicit approval per AGENTS.md.

Scope this skill owns: PARA classification correctness only. Hard signals: projects without outcome/deadline, done-but-not-archived, stalled >30 days, past due-date still Active, areas with deadlines, resources with project tag or deadline, archives modified in last 14 days.

Scope this skill does NOT cover (delegate):

• Broken links, orphans, tag consistency → maintain skill
• Behavioral drift, avoidance → spot-drift skill
• Inbox categorization → process-inbox skill

Obsidian Access

Use Obsidian CLI via Bash. On failure: "Obsidian CLI isn't working — update Obsidian with CLI enabled."

Phase 1 — Audit Pass (READ-ONLY)

Step 1 — Vault rules

obsidian read path="AGENTS.md"

Step 2 — Inventory all buckets (run in parallel)

obsidian files folder="1 - Projects/" format=json
obsidian files folder="2 - Areas/" format=json
obsidian files folder="3 - Resources/" format=json
obsidian files folder="4 - Archives/" format=json

For each Project file, pull frontmatter + body to run hard checks. Cap deep reads at the active project count — Areas/Resources/Archives can be inventoried by frontmatter alone unless flagged.

obsidian property:read path="1 - Projects/<file>.md" name="status"
obsidian property:read path="1 - Projects/<file>.md" name="due-date"
obsidian property:read path="1 - Projects/<file>.md" name="tags"
obsidian read path="1 - Projects/<file>.md"

Check Matrix (hard signals only)

Folder	Check	Severity
Projects	due-date empty or missing	🔴 critical
Projects	## 🎯 Objective section body empty	🔴 critical
Projects	status contains "Done" or "Complete"	🔴 critical (archive)
Projects	due-date < today AND status Active	🔴 critical (overdue)
Projects	Updated: marker >30 days AND retro empty	🟡 stalled
Areas	due-date is set	🔴 critical (areas don't have deadlines)
Areas	tagged project in frontmatter	🔴 critical
Resources	due-date set OR tagged project	🔴 critical (wrong bucket)
Archives	file modified time < 14 days ago	🟡 stalled (reactivated?)

Updated: marker: parse from body under ## 📍 Current Status\n_Updated: YYYY-MM-DD_. Use the template marker, not filesystem mtime — mtime gets touched by metadata changes.

Step 3 — Report

PARA Audit — YYYY-MM-DD

🔴 Critical (classification violations)
  Projects/
    - "<name>": missing due-date frontmatter
    - "<name>": status ✅ Done but still in 1 - Projects/
    - "<name>": due-date 2026-01-15 is past, status 🟢 Active
  Areas/
    - "<name>": has due-date — should be a Project

🟡 Stalled (needs review)
  - "<name>": Updated 2026-04-01 (43 days), no retrospective

🟢 Healthy
  - <count> Projects pass all checks
  - <count> Areas pass all checks

Total: X critical, Y stalled. Want to fix the criticals now?

Phase 2 — Batch Fix Flow (INTERACTIVE)

If 0 critical: stop with "PARA classification healthy."

If >0 critical, use AskUserQuestion:

question: 'Fix the N critical findings now?'
options:
  - label: 'Yes — walk through them'
    description: 'One at a time. Propose action, ask for approval per item.'
  - label: 'Fix only the archivable ones'
    description: "Target 'done but not archived' only (safest batch)."
  - label: "Skip — I'll handle later"
    description: 'Report stays; return via /audit-para.'

Per-Finding Action Proposals

For each critical finding, propose a specific action:

Finding	Proposed action	Route to
Project missing outcome/deadline	Add fields or convert to Area	para-project skill (UPDATE mode)
Project ✅ Done, not archived	Move to 4 - Archives/Projects - YYYY/<name>.md, prompt retro	Direct move + retro prompt
Project past due-date, Active	Extend / mark done / archive / convert to Area	AskUserQuestion → branch
Area with due-date	Convert to Project or remove due-date	para-organizer agent + file move
Resource with project tag or due-date	Re-categorize	para-organizer agent
Archive modified recently	Confirm: intentional edit or reactivate?	AskUserQuestion → file move

Per item: present proposal → AskUserQuestion {Apply / Skip / Modify} → apply only on explicit approve.

Retrospective Gate (for archive moves)

Before any Project → Archives move, check if ## 🔄 Retrospective is empty. If empty:

question: "Fill the retrospective before archiving '<name>'?"
options:
  - label: 'Yes — quick 3-question prompt'
    description: "What went well, what didn't, what to carry forward. ~3 min."
  - label: 'Skip — archive as-is'
    description: 'OK, but you lose the durable artifact.'

If yes: ask 3 questions via AskUserQuestion, then write the retrospective. The CLI has no patch — append the section with obsidian append, or if it must target a specific heading, ask the user (MCP obsidian_patch_content or recreate via read + create ... overwrite). Then move with obsidian move path="..." to="...".

Gotchas

• Run weekly, not daily — daily noise dulls the signal.
• Never auto-fix. Phase 2 batching is not silent batch writes.
• Don't overlap with maintain skill — structural issues (broken links, missing sections) belong there.
• Avoid deep content reads for Areas/Resources — frontmatter checks are fast; full reads at scale are slow.
• If a user disagrees with a finding, respect it. PARA is a tool, not a law. Offer to add an exception note in the file or skip the finding for this run.

References

Load when	Reference
Deep theory on PARA categories, migration, variations, or troubleshooting	references/para-deep-dive.md