curating-knowledge

Curating Knowledge

Overview

Thin dispatcher for the curator agent. The agent is normally auto-dispatched by superpowers:finishing-a-development-branch at the end of a development branch; this skill is the manual entry point.

Announce at start: "I'm using the curating-knowledge skill to dispatch the curator agent."

The Process

Step 1: Collect Per-Call Context

The curator requires eight fields. Gather them from the user / git / project state:

• WORKING_DIRECTORY — project root (default: cwd)
• TASK_DESCRIPTION — one-paragraph summary (ask user if not obvious from git log)
• PLAN_OR_SPEC — path to spec/plan (optional; empty string acceptable)
• BASE_SHA — branch base; default git merge-base HEAD main
• HEAD_SHA — branch tip; default git rev-parse HEAD
• IMPLEMENTER_REPORT — implementer's DONE/BLOCKED report; ask user if not stored
• REVIEWER_REPORTS — reviewer outputs; ask user if not stored
• EXISTING_INDEX — cat knowledge/INDEX.md 2>/dev/null || echo "" (empty on first run)

Verify all eight fields are populated. A missing field would cause the curator to hallucinate or return NEEDS_CONTEXT.

Step 2: Dispatch

Task(
  subagent_type=curator,
  description="Manual curation of branch <branch-name>",
  prompt=<per-call context block below>
)

Per-call block:

WORKING_DIRECTORY: <project root>
TASK_DESCRIPTION: <one paragraph>
PLAN_OR_SPEC: <path or empty>
BASE_SHA: <SHA>
HEAD_SHA: <SHA>
IMPLEMENTER_REPORT: <text>
REVIEWER_REPORTS: <text or "none">
EXISTING_INDEX: <verbatim contents>

Step 3: Handle the Verdict

• DONE — N entries across M topic files — pause; prompt user to review git diff knowledge/ and commit/edit/discard

• NOTHING_TO_LEARN — done; no writes

• NEEDS_CONTEXT — — surface the gap; do not proceed until resolved

• Flagged for review (when the curator's report includes a "Flagged for review" block from contradicted candidates) — interactive resolution per flagged entry:

  The curator wrote N entries and flagged M candidates because canonical
  guidance contradicts them. For each one:
    (a) accept canonical, skip the entry
    (b) write as observed_locally_unvetted (user override)
    (c) edit to align with canonical (dispatch the reviser)
  

  Same execution semantics as finishing-a-development-branch Step 2 (see that skill for the full per-option behavior).

Anti-Patterns — What NOT to Do

DO NOT:

• Dispatch the curator twice on the same SHA range — same-branch double-runs produce duplicates
• Populate EXISTING_INDEX with anything other than verbatim INDEX.md contents (the curator deduplicates against it)
• Pass BASE_SHA == HEAD_SHA (empty diff → curator returns NEEDS_CONTEXT)
• Try to enrich the curator's per-call context with content from your conversation — only project-state inputs (diff, reports, INDEX) are in scope