Wiki Synthesizer

Runs the full raw → wiki pipeline. Handles both unstructured and structured journal entries — if an entry lacks a populated ## Ideas to promote section, the Synthesizer preprocesses it first before promoting. The Synthesizer does not invent — it distills what you already captured.

Prerequisites

The obsidian-vault MCP server must be connected. Verify with /mcp before running.

Note on commands: /synthesize is a natural-language trigger — write it in the chat window as plain text. It is NOT a Claude Code CLI slash command.

Principles

1. Distill, don't invent. Only promote ideas explicitly present in journals or raw sources. Never add claims that weren't in the input.
2. Update over create. Search Knowledge/ before creating any new concept page. If a page exists, enrich it — do not fork it.
3. Preserve provenance. Every concept page updated during synthesis gets a backlink to the journal entry or source that prompted the update.
4. Non-destructive. When preprocessing journal entries, never delete or rewrite original text — only append structured sections.
5. One run, one log. After each synthesis run, append a compact entry to today's run log (Journal/Runs/YYYY-MM-DD.md) documenting what changed. Never write it into the daily note.
6. Update the hot cache last. Maps/_context.md is written at the end of every run — never mid-run.
7. Flag citations, don't fetch them. Newly-cited external URLs get surfaced for archival — this skill never fetches or ingests a document itself. That's wiki-warehouse's job, and its confirm-before-committing rule still applies; flagging is not an ingestion decision.

/synthesize [scope]

Scope options: journal (journals only), sources (raw sources only), or omit to run both.

Phase 0 — Journal preprocessing (conditional)

Runs automatically for each journal entry that lacks a populated ## Ideas to promote section.

1. Read the journal file. If ## Ideas to promote is already present and non-empty, skip to Phase 1.
2. Scan all content outside existing structured sections. For each fragment, classify:

3. Append to the journal entry (never overwrite existing content):

## Ideas to promote

- [Concept name] — [one sentence on what the Knowledge/ page should capture]

## Open questions

- [Question as a complete sentence ending in ?]

Rules:

• Extract 2–5 high-quality candidates. Thin lists beat padded ones.
• If zero concepts were found, write: (none — content is tasks or transient)
• If the entry is fewer than three non-trivial lines, flag and skip.

4. Stamp frontmatter: add processed: YYYY-MM-DD. If no frontmatter exists, create a minimal block.

Phase 1 — Journal promotion

1. Read Maps/_context.md to orient. Note the last synthesis date.
2. List all journal files in Journal/Daily/ updated since the last synthesis date.
3. For each journal file: a. Read the ## Ideas to promote section (populated by Phase 0 or by the user directly). b. For each idea, search Knowledge/ for an existing concept page. c. If found: add new context, add a backlink to the journal entry, set updated: to today. d. If not found: create a new page using the concept template, set status: draft, link back to the journal entry. e. Mark the promoted idea in the journal: move it to ## What I learned with → promoted to [[ConceptPage]].
4. If a journal entry has open questions that map to existing concept pages, add them to that page's ## Open questions section.

Phase 2 — Raw source compilation

1. List all files in Sources/raw/.
2. For each raw file: a. Determine type: paper, book, video, article, or note dump. b. Create a compiled source page in the appropriate Sources/ subfolder using the source template. c. Extract: core argument, key takeaways, quotes worth keeping. d. Link to concept pages in Knowledge/ the source references — create stubs (status: draft) for any that don't exist yet. e. Delete the raw file after the compiled page is written.
3. For any concept stubs created, check whether a page already exists under a different name — merge if so.

Phase 2.5 — External citation flagging

Runs after Phases 1–2 finish, regardless of [scope] — journal promotion and source compilation can both introduce a bare external URL that has no warehoused backing yet.

1. For every page created or updated in Phase 1 or Phase 2 this run, scan its body for external URLs (https?://…, in prose or markdown links).
2. Skip a URL if it's already covered — search Sources/ for a note whose body or warehouse_path/doc_id frontmatter corresponds to that same URL. Already-warehoused citations aren't re-flagged every run.
3. Collect the rest as candidates: url, the page(s) citing it, and a one-line reason (e.g. "primary source for a confirmed claim" vs. "citation only, unevaluated").
4. Do not fetch, hash, or ingest anything here — this phase only flags. Handing a candidate straight to wiki-warehouse's /ingest without surfacing it first would skip that skill's own confirm-before-committing step.

Phase 3 — Hot cache update

Rewrite Maps/_context.md:

• Update ## Recently updated with pages touched this run.
• Update ## Open threads — add new drafts, remove anything promoted to mature.
• Update ## Vault stats counts.
• Set the last synthesis date to today.

Phase 4 — Run log

If today's run log (Journal/Runs/YYYY-MM-DD.md) doesn't exist yet, create it first with write_note (frontmatter type: journal, subtype: run-log, status: draft, confidence: high, updated: <today>; heading # Run log — YYYY-MM-DD), then append — append_note refuses to silently create a frontmatter-less file. Append to today's run log:

## Synthesis run — YYYY-MM-DD

- Preprocessed: [N entries structured]
- Promoted: [[page]], [[page]]
- Compiled sources: [title], [title]
- New stubs: [[page]], [[page]]
- Skipped (already current): [[page]]

## Citations flagged for archival

- <url> — cited in [[page]] (primary source for a confirmed claim) — not yet warehoused

If Phase 2.5 found nothing, write (none — no new external citations this run) instead of an empty list.

Output discipline

• Report phase-by-phase as you go: "Phase 0: preprocessed 2 entries, found 5 concepts. Phase 1: promoting 5 ideas. Phase 2.5: flagged 3 uncited external URLs for archival."
• List every page to be created or updated before writing it — do not write silently.
• If a journal idea is ambiguous (could map to multiple concept pages), surface the options and ask before promoting.
• If a raw source is too sparse to compile meaningfully, flag it rather than creating a thin page.