Distill

/distill

Force a distillation pass now. The daemon's background distill cycles run on its own clock; /distill is the explicit user-triggered pass.

Mental model

Distillation is four operations bundled into one flow:

• emerge — cluster new memories into new pages
• absorb — assign orphan memories to existing pages, propose new pages from topics that 2+ existing pages link to but no page is named for
• refresh — regenerate stale pages from their source memories (only when the user has not edited the page; pages you have touched stay locked)
• merge — combine duplicate pages flagged by the daemon's global review

The default flow runs all four. The rebuild verb is a destructive opt-in that overrides the lock on a single page.

Single flow

One POST to the daemon. Response splits into:

• pages_created / created_ids: pages the daemon synthesized itself (only when daemon has an LLM).
• pending: clusters the daemon couldn't finish. The agent synthesizes each in this session and POSTs them back to /api/pages.

Trigger timing is the only thing that differs between background distill cycles and this skill. Code path is the same; daemon hands back clusters when it can't synthesize; whoever called fills in the rest.

Flow

1. Pick the scope

For bare /distill, infer a target from cwd:

Bash: top=$(git -C "$PWD" rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null); \
      common=$(git -C "$PWD" rev-parse --git-common-dir 2>/dev/null); \
      if [ -n "$common" ]; then \
        case "$common" in /*) root=$(dirname "$common");; *) root=$(cd "$top" && cd "$(dirname "$common")" && pwd);; esac; \
        basename "$root"; \
      fi

• Output → use it (e.g. origin).
• Not a git repo → fall back to basename "$PWD".
• Reserved keyword deep → no scope (global pass).
• Reserved keyword sequence rebuild <page-id> → call distill(target=<page-id>, force=true). Confirms "Rebuild page <id>? Your edits will be wiped, page regenerates from sources." before proceeding. Skip the rest of this skill — single-page rebuild does not produce pending clusters; the daemon's response shape is {"status": "ok", "force": true, "page_id": ..., "updated": true}. Report verbatim.

For /distill <arg> → forward <arg> to target.

2. Call the MCP tool

distill(target="<scope>")

The tool returns the daemon's full JSON payload as text. Parse it as JSON. Possible shapes:

{
  "pages_created": 0,
  "scoped": true,
  "created_ids": [],
  "pending": [
    { "source_ids": [...], "contents": [...], "entity_id": ...,
      "entity_name": ..., "space": ..., "estimated_tokens": ... },
    ...
  ],
  "stale_pages": [
    { "page_id": ..., "title": ..., "summary": ...,
      "source_memory_ids": [...], "stale_reason": "source_updated",
      "user_edited": false, "sources_updated_count": 3 },
    ...
  ],
  "stale_truncated": false,
  "orphan_topics": [
    { "label": "Topic Z", "count": 3 },
    ...
  ]
}

The route never invokes the daemon LLM. created_ids is always empty when called from this skill; pending carries every cluster the daemon found. The agent synthesizes them in this session — that's why the LLM choice is consistent with how the user invoked the skill.

unresolved + hint: relay to user verbatim and stop.

3. Synthesize each pending cluster

The daemon route filters out clusters fully covered by an existing page (subset or Jaccard ≥ 0.8). What remains is either:

• A brand-new cluster (no existing page) → create a new page.
• A refresh candidate (existing_page_id is set) → the cluster has new memories beyond what's in the matched page. The agent has LLM access, so the right move is to refresh the existing page in the same pass.

Cluster shape:

pending: [
  {
    source_ids, contents, entity_id, entity_name, space,
    estimated_tokens,
    existing_page_id?, existing_page_title?, new_memory_count?
  },
  ...
]

For each cluster, first run a coherence check before synthesizing:

• Skim every memory in cluster.contents.
• If the cluster has ≥ ~4 memories and the topics scatter (entity shared but the memories cover unrelated sub-topics — e.g. all tagged Origin but spanning RwLock bugs, schema choices, onboarding UI, migrations, and CSS), the cluster is incoherent. Skip synthesizing it. Record it for the report under "Skipped (low coherence)" with the existing page title (if refresh) or a short topic hint (if new).
• Coherent cluster (memories share an actual topic, not just an entity tag) → proceed to synthesis.

The coherence judgement is something only the agent can do — it needs to read the prose. Daemon clustering is heuristic; agent is the final filter against producing a grab-bag page.

For each coherent cluster:

• Title: short noun phrase. Use existing_page_title when refreshing unless the new memories materially change the topic. For new clusters: cluster.entity_name if specific, otherwise derive from the first memory's content.
• Summary: one sentence — the durable claim.
• Body: 3-7 paragraphs of wiki prose. Use [[wikilinks]]. Cite source ids inline with (source: mem_XXX).

New cluster (no existing_page_id) — call the MCP tool:

create_page(title="...", summary="...", content="...",
            entity_id="<cluster.entity_id or omit>",
            space="<cluster.space>",
            source_memory_ids=[...])

Refresh candidate (existing_page_id is set) — replace the body in place via the update_page MCP tool. This is a single atomic call: replaces content + source list + optional summary, clears the daemon's stale_reason, bumps version, preserves page_id + created_at so external [[wikilinks]] keep working.

update_page(page_id=cluster.existing_page_id,
            content="...",
            source_memory_ids=cluster.source_ids,
            summary="...")

3.5 Refresh stale pages

The stale_pages block in the response lists pages whose sources changed since last compile. Shape:

stale_pages: [
  { page_id, title, summary, source_memory_ids,
    sources_updated_count, stale_reason, user_edited },
  ...
]
stale_truncated: <bool>   # true when 10+ stale pages exist

For each stale page:

• user_edited == true → never auto-rewrite. The user touched the page; the upstream memories also changed. Surface in the "Conflict" report block and stop. The user resolves by hand, OR runs /distill rebuild <page-id> to wipe their edits and regenerate from sources.
• user_edited == false → fetch source memories via get_page_sources(page_id="<id>"), run the same coherence check used for clusters, then call update_page with the existing source_memory_ids and freshly synthesized prose.

update_page(page_id=stale.page_id,
            content="<refreshed prose>",
            source_memory_ids=stale.source_memory_ids,
            summary="<optional refreshed claim>")

When stale_truncated == true, tell the user "more stale pages remain — re-run /distill after this pass to continue."

3.6 Surface orphan-topic suggestions

orphan_topics lists wikilink labels that 2+ existing pages reach for but no page is named for. Each entry is a topic-discovery signal — other pages are asking for this page.

Do not auto-create pages from this list — the agent doesn't have the source memories at hand, and an empty-stub page is worse than no page. Surface them in the report so the user can choose to run /distill <label> intentionally:

Topic suggestions (other pages link here, no page yet):
  - "Topic Z"  (3 pages reference it)
  - "Other"    (2 pages reference it)

Skip the section when orphan_topics is empty.