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David F GliddenandClaude Opus 4.7 119285cf43 claude: back up custom skills, memory, and settings with symlink pattern

The ~/.claude/ directory was previously local-only — a machine wipe
would have lost the accumulated memory, custom skills, and settings.
This commit moves the durable parts into dotfiles with the same
symlink-to-home pattern used for CLAUDE.md, PENDING.md, REVIEWED.md,
and L2-BOOTSTRAP.md.

Preserved (symlinked from ~/.claude/* into here):
  skills/audit/              — thinking-folder drift scanner
  skills/symmetria/          — practice-of-return discipline
  skills/vault-update-people/ — Obsidian People-file maintainer
  skills/wake-up/            — session restoration
  skills/wrap-up/            — session state capture
  memory/                    — 55+ memory files (MEMORY.md, sessions,
                               ledgers, project state, feedback, etc.)
  settings/settings.json     — user preferences (hooks, flags, no secrets)

Deliberately NOT backed up:
  settings.local.json   — contains operational secrets (HF_TOKEN,
                           SSH password in expect scripts); by naming
                           convention, *.local.* is not synced.
                           Needs separate review and probable rotation.
  sessions/, history.jsonl, caches, telemetry — ephemeral
  plugins/, marketplace skills and agents — reinstallable

The working copies at ~/.claude/skills/* and
~/.claude/projects/-Users-davidglidden/memory are symlinks into this
directory, so every write flows here automatically. install.sh
recreates the symlinks on a fresh machine.

FOLLOW-ON (flagged, not in this commit):
  settings.local.json contains a HuggingFace token and an SSH password
  as plaintext strings inside allowed Bash command patterns. These
  should be rotated and moved to secure storage (keychain / pass /
  env file outside the settings file).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

2026-04-17 13:51:04 +02:00

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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 start
session-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 and feature flags. No secrets.

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.json into 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-up would 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-davidglidden changes), the symlink stops pointing where Claude Code looks. Re-create with the new path.

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