---
name: maintaining-hindsight
description: >
  Run Iris's governed Hindsight lifecycle pass: review recent short-horizon
  memory across active agent banks, keep what still helps near-term continuity,
  promote durable entity/project context into GBrain, summarize approved reusable
  knowledge into the KB repo when justified, and forget stale wrong-layer residue.
  Use when running Iris Hindsight maintenance or when a bank is getting noisy.
triggers:
  - hindsight maintenance
  - maintain hindsight
  - scheduled hindsight review
  - clean up hindsight
version: "1.0"
owner: Iris
---

# Maintaining Hindsight

## Purpose
Run Iris's governed maintenance pass over the active agents' Hindsight banks.

This skill is for Iris-owned maintenance only.
It does **not** replace Hindsight auto-recall or auto-retain.
It exists to keep recent working memory healthy over time.
It should not bulk-export Hindsight into GBrain or the KB.

## Relationship to sibling maintenance skills
Keep the maintenance split clean:
- `dreaming-gbrain` = nightly mechanical GBrain dream + git push
- `maintaining-gbrain` = scheduled governed review of existing GBrain material
- `maintaining-hindsight` = frontier cleanup of recent working residue before it is promoted, archived, or forgotten

Do not use this skill to re-run the GBrain dream path, and do not assume that every GBrain-side doctrine or archive decision should start from Hindsight. Once material is already living in GBrain and the question is whether it should become canonical documentation or an archive candidate, hand that review to `maintaining-gbrain`.

## Decision rules
For each high-signal memory, decide whether it should:
- stay in Hindsight as short-horizon continuity
- be promoted into GBrain as durable entity memory
- be summarized into the local git KB as approved reusable documentation
- be moved into the repo's designated archive area when it still deserves traceable retention but should leave active working memory
- be forgotten / de-emphasized as stale or wrong-layer residue

## Workflow
1. Identify the active agent banks in scope and the review window.
2. Review recent high-signal memories from those banks.
3. Keep recent continuity that still belongs in Hindsight.
4. Promote durable entity-shaped knowledge into GBrain only when justified.
5. Summarize approved reusable documentation into the KB repo only when justified.
6. Move archive-worthy material into the repo's designated archive area when it should remain traceable but no longer stay active in Hindsight.
7. Forget or de-emphasize stale residue that should not persist.
8. Return a concise maintenance summary.

## Quality Bar
Before returning output:
- Did I keep live state out of Hindsight maintenance writes?
- Did I send durable entity context to GBrain instead of the KB?
- Did I use archive only for traceable-but-inactive material, not as a dumping ground for uncertainty?
- Did I avoid bulk-dumping weak memory into any long-term store?
- Did I clearly separate kept / promoted / KB / archived / forgotten items?
- Did I preserve one-bank-per-agent boundaries instead of merging personal working memory together?

## Fallback Behavior
- If Hindsight recall is sparse: report thin input and avoid over-claiming.
- If GBrain is unavailable: return promotion candidates without pretending they were written.
- If the KB repo path is unavailable: hold KB candidates and report the gap.
- If the archive location is not explicitly configured: report archive candidates, but do not invent a folder path.
- If state systems are unavailable: lower confidence on any item that may actually be live-state truth.
- If the active bank list is unclear: ask for or report the bank list before running a broad review.

## Pitfalls
- confusing short-term continuity with durable memory
- promoting task-state residue into GBrain
- turning weak memory into official doctrine
- using archive as a vague middle bucket instead of a deliberate lifecycle state
- reviewing everything instead of focusing on high-signal memory