Vault CLI Operations

SkillSearch

Operate Joel's Obsidian Vault through the joelclaw CLI. Use when reading ADRs/projects, searching notes, listing PARA sections, or auditing ADR hygiene with `vault adr` commands. Triggers on: 'check the vault', 'read ADR', 'find this note', 'vault search', 'ADR collisions', 'ADR audit', 'decision inventory', or any Vault command task.

Available today. Use it from your connected AI after setup.

Add ahel to your AI once: Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Claude Code or Codex. Then ask it to use this.

Then ask your AI: use the Vault CLI Operations skill

What this skill tells your AI

The instructions your AI receives, as published by joelhooks/joelclaw in skills/vault/SKILL.md and read by ahel’s review.

Use joelclaw vault as the canonical interface for Vault reads and ADR governance checks.

When to Use

Trigger this skill when the request involves:

  • Reading ADRs by number/reference
  • Searching Vault markdown
  • Listing projects/decisions/inbox/resources
  • ADR hygiene checks (status drift, collisions, index drift)
  • Decision inventory/gardening workflows

Command Tree

joelclaw vault
├── read <ref>
├── search <query> [--semantic] [--limit <limit>]
├── ls [section]
├── tree
└── adr
    ├── list [--status <status>] [--limit <limit>]
    ├── collisions
    ├── audit
    ├── locate <query> [--limit <limit>]
    ├── refs <query>
    ├── prompt <text>
    └── rank [--band <band>] [--unscored] [--all]

Core Workflows

1) Read ADRs or notes

joelclaw vault read "ADR-0168"
joelclaw vault read "project 12"
joelclaw vault read "~/Vault/Projects/12-example/index.md"

2) Search vault content

joelclaw vault search "talon watchdog"
joelclaw vault search "content lifecycle" --semantic --limit 5

3) ADR governance checks

joelclaw vault adr list --status proposed --limit 50
joelclaw vault adr collisions
joelclaw vault adr audit
joelclaw vault adr locate "gateway guardrails"
joelclaw vault adr refs 0189-gateway-guardrails
joelclaw vault adr prompt "compare [[0189-gateway-guardrails]] with [[0218-gateway-availability-lifecycle-qol-improvements]]"
joelclaw vault adr rank
joelclaw vault adr rank --band do-now
joelclaw vault adr rank --unscored

vault adr audit is the canonical pre-flight for ADR grooming. It reports:

  • canonical status counts
  • missing/non-canonical statuses
  • duplicate ADR number collisions
  • broken superseded-by targets
  • broken or ambiguous wiki links inside ADR bodies
  • ADR README index drift

vault adr locate resolves ADR files and heading sections by ADR number, slug, title, or heading text.

vault adr refs finds backlinks from ADRs to a resolved ADR file or section.

vault adr prompt expands [[ADR refs]] into canonical ids and appends an <adr-context> block suitable for agents.

vault adr rank is the daily prioritization pass. It enforces NRC scoring and applies a novelty/cool-factor facet (priority-novelty, alias priority-interest) with a neutral default of 3 when missing.

Rules

  1. CLI-first only: Do not grep random vault files when joelclaw vault can answer directly.
  2. Use audit before ADR surgery: Run joelclaw vault adr audit first, then patch.
  3. Canonical statuses only: proposed|accepted|shipped|superseded|deprecated|rejected.
  4. Keep index synced: After ADR renames/additions, update ~/Vault/docs/decisions/README.md.
  5. Respect collisions as bugs: Any duplicate ADR numeric prefix is a governance bug to resolve.

References

  • ADR-0081: Vault CLI & Agent Tool Access
  • ADR-0173: ADR Number Collision Remediation
  • ADR-0174: Vault Command Tree + ADR Audit CLI
  • CLI docs: ~/Code/joelhooks/joelclaw/docs/cli.md

Signals

GitHub stars
64
Forks
2
Last commit
Sep 2026
Advanced
Item type
skill
Key
vault
Source
github.com/joelhooks/joelclaw