Periodic KB hygiene should be externally triggered, not embedded in routing
Type: note · Status: current
Routing instructions are loaded every session, so they should optimize for high-frequency decisions: where content goes, which type to use, and which docs to open next. Periodic hygiene checks are different. They are low-frequency operational maintenance and are typically triggered by something external: a user request, a heartbeat job, or CI.
Placing periodic operations inside always-loaded routing instructions adds instruction noise on every session while helping only occasionally. It also blurs two responsibilities:
- Routing: "what to do now for this task"
- Operations: "what to audit from time to time"
The separation keeps the default path lightweight without losing the maintenance playbook. The playbook itself lives in maintenance-operations-catalogue-should-stage-distillation-into-instructions, which is the staging ground for operations before promotion into kb/instructions/.
Relevant Notes:
- context-loading-strategy — extends this by applying always-loaded vs on-demand loading to maintenance operations
- maintenance-operations-catalogue-should-stage-distillation-into-instructions — operationalizes this by collecting periodic checks and their distillation status
- instructions-are-skills-without-automatic-routing — defines the target artifact for procedures that mature beyond note-level catalogues
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