# maps/ — artifacts addressed to the steward

A **map** is something David reads *directly* to orient himself: a current-state
dashboard, a corpus index, a reading list, an architectural sketch, an audit he
opens rather than asks about.

Maps are not session records and not memory files. Session records are written
for the next session; memory files are written for the next Claude. A map is
written for **the person the whole system is for**, and he does not browse
`~/.claude/projects/…/memory/` — so a map filed there is a map that is not read.

## Why this directory exists

Because one was lost. `arc-current-state-2026-05-07.md` was a live ARC dashboard
kept on the Desktop. The Desktop was tidied at some point and the map went with
it; the only surviving trace was a link in `MEMORY-reference.md` that read as
noise for three months and was nearly deleted as such. On 2026-07-28 a census
found **four more** in the same condition — Making-Sequence architecture and
reading list among them, load-bearing for live corpus work — every one of them
with zero copies anywhere else.

The cause was structural, not careless: maps had no home. Session records,
memories and code were all durable; the one artifact class addressed to the
steward lived on a desktop and was one tidy-up from gone.

## How it works

Files live **here** (git-tracked, pushed with the rest of dotfiles). Each is
symlinked back to its original Desktop path, so the Desktop looks and behaves
exactly as before — same filenames, same place, nothing to remember.

    ~/Desktop/corpus-index-2026-07-26.md  →  ~/dotfiles/maps/corpus-index-2026-07-26.md

Tidying the Desktop now deletes a *symlink*. The map survives.

## The rule, for whoever writes the next one

**Write maps here, then symlink to the Desktop — never the other way round.**
A map authored straight onto the Desktop is untracked from the moment it exists,
which is the exact failure this directory closes.

`wake-digest.py` reports any top-level Desktop `.md` that is not a symlink into
this directory, so a stray map is visible at the next wake rather than at the
next loss. It reports; it does not move anything — the Desktop is the steward's.

## Naming

Date-stamped, kebab-case, subject first: `corpus-index-2026-07-26.md`. A map is
a point-in-time artifact; a map without a date cannot be told from a current one.
Superseding a map does not mean deleting it — write the new one and let the dates
order them.

*Established 2026-07-28 at the steward's direction, after the loss above.*