alive:bundle

Bundle

Manage the bundle lifecycle: create, share, graduate, status. Bundles are the unit of focused work — anything with a deliverable or a future audience.

This skill is invoked by the bundle awareness injection, by the load skill's "what are you working on?" prompt, or directly by the human via /alive:bundle.

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Detection — When to Invoke

The spectrum:

	One-off	Bundle	Walnut
Sessions	This session only	Likely >1, or worth returning to	Own ongoing lifecycle
Deliverable	No	Yes — ship, send, or reference later	Multiple deliverables
Audience	Just you, right now	Someone specific, or future-you	Has its own people

Trigger: "Does this have a deliverable or a future audience?" If yes -> bundle.

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Bundle Types

Outcome Bundle

The default. A body of work with a deliverable — a document, a plan, a shipped feature. Has drafts, versions, a finish line.

Evergreen Bundle

Living reference material that grows over time. No "done" state — it accumulates. Research collections, style guides, knowledge bases. Status cycles between active and maintaining rather than progressing to done.

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Bundle Location

Bundles live flat in the walnut root. A folder is a bundle if it contains context.manifest.yaml.

nova-station/                   # walnut root
  _kernel/
  shielding-review/             # bundle
    context.manifest.yaml
    raw/
  launch-checklist/             # another bundle
    context.manifest.yaml
    raw/

No bundles/ subdirectory. Every bundle sits directly in the walnut root alongside _kernel/.

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Operations

Create

When no active bundle matches the current work:

1. Ask for the goal — one sentence. "What are you building?"
2. Determine bundle type — outcome (default) or evergreen
3. Derive the bundle name from the goal (kebab-case, descriptive)
4. Confirm:

╭─ 🐿️ new bundle
│
│  Name:    shielding-review
│  Type:    outcome
│  Walnut:  nova-station
│  Goal:    Evaluate radiation shielding vendors for habitat module
│  Path:    shielding-review/
│
│  ▸ Good?
│  1. Create
│  2. Change name
│  3. Make it evergreen instead
│  4. Cancel
╰─

5. Read templates/bundle/context.manifest.yaml
6. Fill placeholders: {{goal}}, {{date}}, {{session_id}}, {{type}}
7. Create {walnut}/{name}/context.manifest.yaml
8. Create {walnut}/{name}/raw/ (empty directory)
9. Note: project.py will pick up the new bundle on next save — no manual now.json update needed
10. Stash: "Created bundle: {name}" (type: note)

Do NOT create tasks.md or tasks.json — tasks are created on demand via tasks.py add. Do NOT create observations.md — removed in v3.

The first draft file is {name}-draft-01.md when the human starts writing.

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context.manifest.yaml

Every bundle has a context.manifest.yaml at its root. This is the bundle's identity and state tracker.

name: shielding-review
type: outcome              # outcome | evergreen
goal: "Evaluate radiation shielding vendors for habitat module"
status: draft              # draft | prototype | published | done | active | maintaining
created: 2026-03-28
session: abc123

sensitivity: normal        # normal | private | shared
shared: []
discovered: {}

parent_bundle:             # name of parent bundle, if nested
tags: []
people: []
sources: []

Key fields:

• type — outcome or evergreen. Drives lifecycle behavior.
• status — outcome bundles: draft -> prototype -> published -> done. Evergreen bundles: active <-> maintaining.
• sensitivity — controls sharing and export behavior:
  • normal — can be shared freely
  • private — excluded from walnut.world publishing, flagged on share attempts
  • shared — actively published or shared with specific people
• parent_bundle — if this bundle is nested inside another, records the parent's name
• discovered — populated by alive:mine-for-context with extraction tracking
• sources — paths to raw material or linked references from other bundles

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Share

When the human shares a bundle with someone (email, Slack, in person):

1. Check sensitivity — if private, warn before proceeding
2. Identify: who received it, how (method), which version file
3. Update the bundle's context.manifest.yaml shared: field:

shared:
  - to: Sue Chen
    method: email
    date: 2026-03-15
    version: shielding-review-draft-02.md

4. Dispatch to the person's walnut at save (stash with destination tag -> [[person-name]])
5. If bundle status is draft and it's been shared externally -> advance to published
6. Update sensitivity to shared if it was normal

╭─ 🐿️ bundle shared
│  shielding-review draft-02 -> Sue Chen via email
│  Status: draft -> published
╰─

Publishing to walnut.world

When the human wants to publish a bundle to walnut.world:

1. Check sensitivity — block if private
2. Confirm the human wants public sharing
3. Package the bundle content for walnut.world
4. Update context.manifest.yaml with publication record

╭─ 🐿️ bundle published to walnut.world
│  shielding-review v1 -> ben.walnut.world/shielding-review
│  Sensitivity: shared (public)
╰─

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Graduate

Graduation is a status flip, not a folder move. The bundle stays where it is.

Outcome bundle graduation:

1. Detect: scan {walnut}/{name}/ for files matching *-v1.md or *-v1.html
2. Confirm with the human:

╭─ 🐿️ graduation ready
│  shielding-review has a v1. Mark as done?
│
│  ▸ Graduate?
│  1. Yes — mark done
│  2. Not yet
╰─

3. If confirmed:
   • Update context.manifest.yaml status to done (or published if shared)
   • The v1 output file stays inside the bundle folder
   • The bundle folder stays where it is in the walnut root
   • Update _kernel/now.json -> clear bundle if this was the active bundle
   • Log entry: "Bundle {name} graduated — status: done"

Bundle -> walnut graduation (when a bundle outgrows its container):

1. Confirm: "This bundle wants to be a walnut. Graduate it?"
2. Determine ALIVE domain and walnut name
3. Scaffold new walnut (invoke the create flow)
4. Seed _kernel/key.md from bundle context.manifest.yaml (goal, tags, people carry over)
5. Move bundle contents into new walnut root as the first bundle
6. Log entry in BOTH parent walnut ("Bundle {name} graduated to walnut") and new walnut ("Graduated from {parent}")
7. Add wikilink [[new-walnut]] to parent's _kernel/key.md links:

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Sub-Bundles

Bundles nest directly inside other bundle folders. No intermediate bundles/ directory.

ecosystem-launch/                     # parent bundle
  context.manifest.yaml               # parent manifest (parent_bundle: blank)
  raw/
  website/                            # sub-bundle
    context.manifest.yaml             # parent_bundle: ecosystem-launch
  waitlist/                           # sub-bundle
    context.manifest.yaml             # parent_bundle: ecosystem-launch

Deeper nesting works the same way:

research/
  context.manifest.yaml
  market-analysis/
    context.manifest.yaml             # parent_bundle: research
    competitor-deep-dive/
      context.manifest.yaml           # parent_bundle: market-analysis

Sub-bundle rules:

• parent_bundle: in the manifest records the relationship
• Sub-bundles inherit sensitivity from parent unless overridden
• Sub-bundle status is independent of parent status
• Graduation is a status flip — sub-bundles stay nested where they are

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Tasks

Bundle tasks are operated exclusively through tasks.py CLI. Never read or write tasks.json directly.

• Add a task: tasks.py add --walnut {path} --bundle {name} --title "Write vendor comparison"
• Complete a task: tasks.py done --walnut {path} --bundle {name} --id {task_id}
• List tasks: tasks.py list --walnut {path} --bundle {name}

tasks.json is created automatically on the first tasks.py add call. Do not scaffold an empty tasks file during bundle creation.

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Status

Show the current state of bundles in the active walnut:

╭─ 🐿️ bundles in nova-station
│
│  Active: shielding-review (outcome, draft, draft-02)
│    Goal: Evaluate radiation shielding vendors
│    Last worked: session:a8c95e9, 2 days ago
│
│  Others:
│    launch-checklist — outcome, prototype, draft-03
│    safety-brief — outcome, done, shared with FAA (2026-03-10)
│    vendor-database — evergreen, active
│
│  ▸ Work on one?
│  1. shielding-review (continue)
│  2. launch-checklist
│  3. vendor-database
│  4. Start new bundle
╰─

Scan the walnut root for directories containing context.manifest.yaml to build this view. Show type, status, current version, goal, last session, and shares.

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Version File Naming

• Drafts: {bundle-name}-draft-{nn}.md (e.g., shielding-review-draft-01.md)
• Shipped: {bundle-name}-v1.md
• Visual versions: same pattern with .html extension

The bundle name is in every filename. The bundle folder is self-documenting.

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Integration Points

Load invokes this skill when prompting "what are you working on?" and the human picks "start something new."

Save checks bundle state in its integrity step — was a bundle worked on? Was one shared? This skill handles the actual context.manifest.yaml updates.

Tidy scans for *-v1.md in bundles still marked draft or prototype and surfaces graduation candidates (status flip, not folder move).

Create delegates bundle scaffolding to this skill rather than handling it inline.

Awareness injection triggers this skill when the squirrel detects bundle-worthy work mid-session.

Mine updates context.manifest.yaml discovered: field when processing raw sources within a bundle.