search

/search

When To Use

• The user wants to retrieve or discover existing notes, topics, syntheses, conferences, or local ideas.
• The user is asking "what do we already have" before deciding what to read or synthesize.

Hard Boundaries (Read-Only)

• Does not write any markdown files
• Does not modify overview.md
• Does not update indexes
• Does not append to ops/log.md
• Does not archive PDFs

Contrast with similar skills:

• /search: find and list existing content, explain relevance
• /synthesize: compare content and produce a new written output
• /discuss: use retrieved content to push a research idea forward

Workflow

1. Extract key terms from the user's query.
2. Run query_context.py with the query:

   python3 .codex/skills/maintain/scripts/query_context.py \
     "<user query terms>" \
     --limit 8
   

   Add --include-private if the user may be looking for local ideas or drafts.
3. Present results in ranked order. For each result, provide:
   • Path and title
   • 1–2 sentences explaining why it's relevant to the query
   • Current status if informative (e.g., drafting vs complete)
4. Recommend a next step for the most relevant results:
   • Note is complete and the user wants to review → /refresh
   • Note is missing and user wants to read the paper → /read or /intake
   • Multiple relevant notes suggest a comparison → /synthesize
   • Results spark a research idea → /discuss

Inputs Expected

• Free-text query (topic, paper title fragment, concept, author name, venue)

Scripts

• ../maintain/scripts/query_context.py — full invocation example in _shared/script-registry.md

Done Criteria

• Ranked results are presented with relevance explanations
• A next step is suggested for the most relevant hits