Cortex Evolve — Save to Vault

Save content to the cortex Obsidian vault.

Resolve Vault Path

Read ~/.cortex/config.json to get vault_path. If the file doesn't exist, tell the user to run /cortexes:genesis first. All file paths below are relative to the vault root.

Determine Content Type

Ask the user if unclear. Use these heuristics:

Signal	Type	Target
Technical knowledge, how-to, concept explanation	Notes	Notes/<category>/<title>.md
Related to a specific repo's design, decision, or progress	Projects	Projects/<repo-name>/<title>.md

Writing to Notes

1. Determine category from content (C++, Linux, Nginx, Web, or create new)
2. Create file at Notes/<category>/<title>.md
3. Use this template:

---
title: <title>
tags:
  - <relevant-tags>
created: <YYYY-MM-DD>
source: cortex
---

# <title>

<content>

<optional: related wikilinks like [[nginx-cert-renew]] or [[other-note]]>

4. Use Obsidian wikilinks [[note-name]] for vault-internal references
5. Use standard markdown links [text](url) for external URLs only

Writing to Projects

1. Determine repo name (from current session context or ask user)
2. If Projects/<repo-name>/_index.md doesn't exist, create it:

---
title: <repo-name>
repo: <git-remote-url>
tags:
  - project
---

# <repo-name>

<brief description>

3. Create topic file at Projects/<repo-name>/<topic>.md

Update _index.md

After writing the file:

1. Read <vault_path>/_index.md

2. Append a row under the matching ### sub-section, creating the sub-section (with its table header) if it does not exist yet:

   • Notes → ### <topic> under ## Notes: | [[title]] | tags | one-line summary |
   • Projects → ### <repo-name> under ## Projects: | [[topic-title]] | tags | summary |

   Rows are per-page, not per-repo: a new repo means a new ### sub-section, not a single row standing for the whole repo.

3. Bump the updated date in frontmatter. There is no entries: count to maintain — the field was removed by design (see /cortexes:genesis).

Append Log Entry

Compose this entry with all placeholders substituted (today's date/time in YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM format, the vault-relative path of the saved file, the repo name or (none)):

## [YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM] evolve | user-initiated
- outcome: new
- target: <vault-relative path of saved file>
- repo: <repo name or "(none)">

Append to <vault>/log.md using either the Edit tool (preferred — preserves file integrity) or bash:

printf '\n%s\n' "$ENTRY" >> "<vault>/log.md"

Where $ENTRY is the fully-substituted markdown entry.

Preserve exactly one blank line between entries (achieved by the leading \n in the printf above, or by ensuring the Edit tool's appended content starts with a blank line).

The dedup_top1 field is omitted for evolve entries (evolve does not perform a dedup check in Phase 1; the user explicitly chose to save).

Commit

In the vault repo:

git add <file> _index.md log.md
git commit -m "cortex: <type> <brief>"

If git.commit_trailer in config is a non-empty string, pass it as a second -m so it becomes the last line of the message body: git commit -m "cortex: <type> <brief>" -m "<commit_trailer>".

If auto_push is true in config: git push

Confirm to the user what was saved and where.

Update Vector Store

After committing the new file to the vault:

1. Run: cortex-vec upsert <relative-path-from-vault>