memory-curate

Curate a single over-ceiling topic-taxonomy file by walking its individual ### entries and applying keep/archive/delete per entry, instead of the whole-file operation /mempenny:memory-distill performs. Distill on a multi-entry topic file would collapse everything into 1-3 sentences and destroy nearly all of it — curate makes the decision one entry at a time instead. See docs/memory-taxonomy-design.md §4.

Step 1 — Parse arguments

The user invoked this command with: $ARGUMENTS

• First positional argument — absolute path to a topic file. Required.
• --lang <code> — output language. If not passed, check MEMPENNY_LOCALE. Default en.
• --yes — skip the apply confirmation gate (mirrors /mempenny:clean's flag). Backup-first behavior unchanged.

Step 2 — Load locale strings

2a — Validate <lang> before reading (H2: path traversal guard)

Before constructing the locale path, validate that <lang> matches the regex ^[a-zA-Z]{2,3}(-[A-Za-z0-9]{2,8})?$. If it does not match, treat it exactly like a missing locale: silently reset <lang> to en and warn with errors.locale_missing.

Read ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/locales/<lang>/strings.json. Fall back to en and warn with errors.locale_missing if missing. You need triage.*, apply.*, errors.* keys and distill_output_instruction.

Step 3 — Validate the input file path

Before touching the file, apply the following validation. On any failure, print errors.memory_dir_not_found and STOP — do not read the file.

1. Regex (C1): the raw argument must match ^/[A-Za-z0-9/_.\ -]{1,4096}$. Reject anything that doesn't match.
2. Symlink check (pre-realpath): [ ! -L "<path>" ] — reject if the path is a symlink. This check runs BEFORE realpath because realpath follows symlinks.
3. Realpath: run realpath "<path>" via Bash. Use the resolved value for all subsequent steps (held as $resolved).
4. Regex re-check: the resolved path must also match ^/[A-Za-z0-9/_.\ -]{1,4096}$. Reject if it does not.
5. Confinement: the resolved path's parent directory must equal {MEMORY_DIR} (the file must be directly inside the memory dir, not a descendant of a subdirectory, and not escaping via symlink). Always auto-detect {MEMORY_DIR} from the current project mapping (this command does not accept --dir). Use the same H5 4-check pattern as clean.md Step 3. If auto-detection fails, print errors.memory_dir_not_found and STOP.
6. Existence + regular file: [ -f "<resolved>" ] — reject if absent or not a regular file.
7. Reserved-topic check: the basename must be exactly one of the three curatable reference-topic files (traps.md, rules.md, reference.md) or a named sub-topic split of one (<topic>-<name>.md, e.g. rules-prod.md). Curate is deliberately narrower than the full 8-topic set:
   • charter.md/pending.md are reference-topics but explicitly exempt from all automated reduction (docs/memory-taxonomy-design.md §3 — plain prose, no ### entries, and distilling requirements or in-flight work is destructive). If the target is one of these, print an error saying so and STOP — do not curate it even on an explicit manual invocation.
   • worklog.md/support.md/decisions.md are log-topics — they reduce by sharding closed years out via /mempenny:memory-shard-roll, not by entry curation (their entries are - **YYYY-MM-DD** list items under ## month headings, not ### headings — curate's entry-extraction wouldn't find anything to classify). If the target is one of these (or a year-shard of one), print an error pointing at /mempenny:memory-shard-roll instead and STOP.
   • howto.md and any other filename: print an error explaining that curate only operates on traps.md/rules.md/reference.md (and their sub-topic splits) — use /mempenny:memory-distill for anything else — and STOP.