compile

Compile — logbook → dossiers (the canon)

Read the append-only logbook and distil its claims into dossiers: the canonical, consistency-checked SSOT a human inspects. Each cabinet claim carries a provenance link back to the minute that introduced it, so the canon is traceable and regenerable.

The logbook is faithful but low-authority and chronological; the cabinets are authoritative and topical. Compile is the bridge — it consolidates many sessions into one current truth.

Inputs

• The workspace (discover a bureau.json; default bureau).
• The set of minutes to process: every entry under logbook/ whose session id is not yet recorded in <workspace>/_compile-state.json, narrowed by --since <YYYY-MM-DD> when given. _compile-state.json is the watermark: { "compiled": ["<session-id>", …] }. It is underscore-prefixed, so the press never renders it.

Cabinet page schema

A dossier is one markdown file in a topic drawer (decisions/, architecture/, characters/, …) holding one claim (see step 4 — one claim per page keeps a page's trust tier unambiguous). Frontmatter uses the press's simple parser: the title is unique and unquoted and a scalar value contains no ", newline, or [ ] |. The only values that carry [[ ]] are single-line typed relation edges like contradicts: [[Other page]] (never a multi-line YAML list — the simple parser ignores those). Provenance lives in the body (a Sources line), because the press's backlinks panel indexes body links, not frontmatter:

---
title: SSOT model
updated: 2026-06-10
status: proposed
---

# SSOT model

The wiki is authoritative for current truth; the logbook is low-authority provenance.
See [[Logbook model]].

**Sources.** [[session a1b2c3d4 · 2026-06-10]]

• status is the trust tier (defined in the review skill). Compile writes only proposed (an AI claim, unchecked) or verified (a fact it confirmed against the repo). It never writes canonical — that tier is reached only through bureau:review, the human gate. A conflict yields contested (see the conflict policy).
• The body **Sources.** line wiki-links the minutes that justify this page, each by its title (session <session-id> · <date>). This is the provenance — the press renders it as a backlink, so each session shows which dossiers it produced, and the page lists the sessions that justify it. A claim that disagrees keeps its own inline [[session …]] link.

Steps

1. Locate the workspace (bureau.json; default bureau). If none, tell the user to run bureau:init first and stop.
2. Select entries. List minutes not in <workspace>/_compile-state.json (apply --since). If none remain, report "cabinets already current" and stop.
3. Extract claims. For each selected entry, read its Decisions and Changes. Each yields a claim and the dossier it belongs to (the entry names the target page).
4. Place each claim — one claim per page. Derive the page title; enforce the title rules: NFC-trim, strip any [ ] | and quotes, and if the title collides with an existing page on a different claim, disambiguate (append a qualifier) rather than overwrite. Find the page by title; if absent, create it in the drawer matching its topic (use the bureau.json profiles). Keep distinct claims on distinct pages so each page has a single, unambiguous trust tier.
5. Write provenance. Add the source minute to the page's body **Sources.** line (a [[session …]] link). Never drop an existing source. Set updated: to today.
6. Set the trust tier. A claim about a checkable artifact (a path, a build command, a function signature, a config value, a dependency version, a commit) is confirmed against the live repo. Before reading any path from a claim, resolve it and confirm it stays inside the repo/workspace — reject absolute paths, .. escapes, and symlinks that point outside; read only contained paths. If the claim holds, set status: verified, add a body **Verified.** line naming the artifact and date, and record an entry in <workspace>/_verify.json (schema below). Everything else — judgments, rationale, anything not mechanically checkable — stays status: proposed. Never write canonical (that is bureau:review).
7. Apply the conflict policy (below) whenever a new claim disagrees with a page's current claim.
8. Structural check. Run bureau:inspect (press build + health). Report the dossier count and any dangling links, orphans, or contradictions it surfaces.
9. Mark compiled — only on success. ONLY after the writes and the structural check succeed, append each processed session id to <workspace>/_compile-state.json. A failed inspect must leave the session un-compiled so the next run retries it, not skips broken output.
10. Report. List pages created, pages updated, pages left proposed (awaiting bureau:review), and any set to contested, with the command to inspect them.

_verify.json schema

Keyed by page title, so bureau:review can map a fingerprint back to the page and re-check it:

{
  "<page title>": {
    "verifiedAt": "<YYYY-MM-DD>",
    "checks": [
      { "artifact": "<repo-relative path>", "hash": "<sha256>", "claim": "<what was confirmed>" }
    ]
  }
}

Conflict policy

A new claim that disagrees with a page's existing claim is never silently overwritten. Instead:

• set the page status: contested;
• keep both claims in the body, each with its own [[session …]] provenance;
• add a typed contradicts: edge naming the other page — a single line: contradicts: [[Other page]] (for 2+, one comma list contradicts: [[A]], [[B]], deduped; never a multi-line YAML list, which the press ignores). Add the reciprocal edge on the other page. the press's health lane then renders the contradiction;
• name the conflict in the report so the human resolves it.

Resolution is a human act: once the user picks the true claim, the losing claim is removed (its provenance stays in the logbook) and the page goes back through bureau:review to reach canonical.

Rules

1. Cabinets only. Compile writes dossiers, _compile-state.json, and _verify.json. It never edits minutes — the logbook is append-only history.
2. Provenance is mandatory. Every claim added to a cabinet traces to a [[session …]] source in the page body. No orphan claims.
3. No silent overwrite. Disagreement triggers the conflict policy, never a quiet replace.
4. Idempotent. Re-running skips already-compiled sessions; the same logbook yields the same cabinets.

Examples

Context: Three sessions have been filed but the cabinets are out of date. user: "bureau:compile" assistant: "3 uncompiled sessions. I distilled their decisions into dossiers — created **Capture design** and **SSOT model** under decisions/, updated **Logbook model**, each with a body **Sources.** line linking the session that introduced it. The build command claim verified against package.json (status: verified); the design rationale stays proposed for bureau:review." Facts checkable against the repo become verified; judgments stay proposed for the human gate. Provenance is a body link so it shows as a backlink. Context: A new session asserts a token TTL that conflicts with an existing page. user: "Update the cabinets from the latest session." assistant: "The new claim (tokens last 1h) disagrees with **Token TTL** (24h). Per the conflict policy I did not overwrite — I set the page status: contested, kept both claims with their provenance, and added a contradicts: edge so the press's health flags it. Resolve it in a session, then recompile." Disagreement never silently overwrites — it surfaces as a contested page with a contradicts edge for the human.

Scope note

This skill covers ONLY distillation: minutes → dossiers with provenance. It does not capture sessions (that is the capture skill / bureau:file-session), does not render the gazette (that is bureau:inspect), and does not run the semantic consistency sweep (that is bureau:lint). It is invoked by the bureau:compile command.