David F GliddenandClaude Opus 5
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REVIEWED.md ended at 86 while seven decisions had been reached and never written down. The count of rulings owed could not be answered from the register: it was 23 never-ruled, not the 26 the wake digest reported, and three of the difference were AUTHORIZED items whose headings simply omit their PENDING number. Placed: REVIEWED-87 (verbatim from its filed ruling) through -93, plus -94, the jurist's ruling on the PENDING-106 scope objection. Five of the seven were RECONSTRUCTED from a session record because the INC-2026-07-28-01 package has no filed ruling document — every other jurist gate this cycle filed one. The jurist read all seven against its own account and confirmed them; three (88, 92, 93) now carry a Provenance line recording that they are checked reconstructions and naming what was NOT recovered. PENDING-101's reasons for striking two of three findings are gone and no line recovers them. Closed: PENDING-99, -105, and -106. 106 was closed by SPLIT rather than whole — its own text named an open half (the kind-(a) census), and marking it done would have retired authorized work by bookkeeping. Filed: PENDING-108 (the ruling document is filed only when someone remembers — 12 of 13 packages did, and the one that did not is the package touching Constraint #1), -109 (that census, carrying its evidence, needing a date not an authorization), -110 (REVIEWED-N and PENDING-N are independent sequences that now collide; REVIEWED-89's own text says "DOCKETED on PENDING-89" meaning two different things). Corrected, jurist-caught: three claims of "eight days" came from reading a date out of an external incident identifier. One day, and for the reconstruction, the same day — which makes PENDING-108 worse, not better: one day was enough to lose four things permanently. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01AB3Kryoy6b1pm2Nz1DYdLh
Claude Code configuration — backup & restore
This directory holds the durable Claude Code configuration that should survive a machine wipe: custom skills, accumulated memory, and user-level settings. The working copies at ~/.claude/* are symlinks pointing here, so edits flow both directions automatically.
What's preserved here
skills/ — custom skills we've authored
| Skill | Purpose |
|---|---|
audit/ |
Scans thinking folder + vault inbox for organizational drift; report-only |
symmetria/ |
Practice-of-return discipline; prime-directive foregrounding under context pressure |
vault-update-people/ |
Searches Obsidian vault for new mentions of a person; proposes People-file updates |
wake-up/ |
Restores full session context from memory, governance, and git at session start |
wrap-up/ |
Captures session state for future restoration; the quality of the next wake depends on this |
Marketplace-installed skills (from Claude Code plugins) are not backed up here — they are regenerable on any fresh install.
memory/ — auto-memory for the main project scope
The substrate of continuity. 55+ files including:
MEMORY.md— the index, loaded at every session startsession-2026-*.md— session records (full Dasein-frame wrap-ups: pulling thread, pause statement, literal question for next-Claude)session-ledger-*.md— Symmetria daily ledgers (returns, recalibrations, authorization moves, bypasses)project-*.md— active project state snapshots (ARC rework, Chamber, L2 review, etc.)feedback-*.md— steward preferences and corrections learned over time- Many others
Real path: ~/.claude/projects/-Users-davidglidden/memory/ symlinks here.
settings/settings.json — Claude Code user settings
Sanitized. Contains hook registrations (including the MemPalace auto-save hooks) and feature flags. No secrets.
mempalace/ — MemPalace setup files
The bootstrap configuration for MemPalace. These files live at ~/.mempalace/ but are also backed up here because they represent the accumulated understanding of who-is-who and what-is-what. The palace itself (~/_Dev/mempalace/.local-data/palace/, ~1GB) is NOT backed up — it's rebuildable by re-running mempalace mine against the same source data.
| File | Purpose |
|---|---|
config.json |
Palace path + default topic wings + hall keywords |
identity.txt |
L0 layer — loaded every session; ~100 tokens identifying who I am, who the steward is, intellectual substrate |
wing_config.json |
Named wings for real people and projects (wing_david, wing_nuria, wing_lune, wing_kai, wing_seb, wing_peter, wing_arc, wing_capablemind, wing_chamber, wing_afterthereply, wing_aldinexxi, wing_l2, wing_claude-code) |
The auto-save hooks (wired in settings/settings.json via Stop and PreCompact events) point at ~/_Dev/mempalace/hooks/mempal_save_hook.sh and mempal_precompact_hook.sh. If MemPalace is reinstalled elsewhere, update those paths.
What is deliberately NOT here
settings.local.json
Kept local-only because its permissions allowlist has historically contained operational secrets (HuggingFace tokens embedded in approved Bash commands; SSH passwords in approved expect scripts). The .local.json naming convention exists for exactly this reason.
Before backing any settings.local.json up anywhere, audit it for secrets and redact them.
Session transcripts (sessions/, history.jsonl, projects/*/sessions/)
Too large; ephemeral by design; not needed to restore identity.
Caches, telemetry, runtime state
cache/, file-history/, paste-cache/, telemetry/, statsig/, stats-cache.json, scheduled_tasks.lock, session-env/, mcp-needs-auth-cache.json, debug/, tasks/, todos/ — all regenerate naturally.
Marketplace-installed skills and agents
plugins/, and the many non-custom entries under skills/ and agents/ come from Claude Code's plugin system. Reinstallable on a fresh machine.
Restore procedure
On a fresh machine, after cloning dotfiles:
cd ~/dotfiles/claude
./install.sh
The install script:
- Verifies
~/dotfiles/claude/is present - Creates
~/.claude/skills/and~/.claude/projects/-Users-davidglidden/if missing - Symlinks each custom skill from
~/.claude/skills/X → ~/dotfiles/claude/skills/X - Symlinks the memory tree from
~/.claude/projects/-Users-davidglidden/memory → ~/dotfiles/claude/memory - Copies
settings.jsoninto place if no existing file (does not overwrite) - Skips anything already present — idempotent
After running: the first Claude Code session on the new machine has full memory, all custom skills, and baseline settings.
Why this matters
Without this backup, a machine wipe means:
- All session memory lost —
/wake-upwould have nothing to restore from - All custom skills lost — the practice-of-return discipline, session lifecycle, audit workflows
- The collaboration history with Claude Code loses its thread
The memory tree is the single most irreplaceable artifact — it accumulates through dialogue and cannot be reconstructed from any other source. 384 KB of text that represents months of learning about preferences, active projects, decisions, and open horizons.
Maintenance
These files are live. Claude Code writes to them during normal operation (ledger updates, memory file creation/edits, settings changes). Because the working copies at ~/.claude/* are symlinks into this directory, every write lands here automatically. Then git status in ~/dotfiles/ shows what's changed and invites a commit.
Recommended cadence: commit dotfiles/claude/ changes alongside other dotfiles work, roughly weekly or when a significant session has concluded. The /wrap-up skill should be treated as a natural commit moment for the memory tree.
Fragility to watch
- Symlinks break if
~/dotfiles/claude/is moved. Keep dotfiles at~/dotfiles/. - macOS Time Machine / backup tools may or may not follow symlinks. Verify your backup solution sees files, not just broken links.
- If Claude Code's internal path conventions change (e.g., the project-scope slug
-Users-davidgliddenchanges), the symlink stops pointing where Claude Code looks. Re-create with the new path.