genesis

Initialize or reconfigure the cortex memory vault. Run once per machine, or again after switching machines to rebuild local state.

Steps

1. Check the cortex-vec CLI

Run command -v cortex-vec. If it is not on PATH, tell the user the vault's indexing and search need the CLI, and offer to install it now:

# Recommended: isolated tool install via uv
uv tool install cortex-vec

# Or with pip
pip install cortex-vec

If they decline, continue anyway — recording and the skills degrade gracefully — but note that semantic indexing and cortex-vec search stay unavailable until it is installed.

2. Check for existing config

Read ~/.cortex/config.json. If it exists, show current config and ask if the user wants to reconfigure or abort.

3. Ask for vault path

If the user provided an argument, use that as the vault path. Otherwise, ask: "Where is the cortex vault? (e.g. /srv/cortex, ~/cortex)"

If the path exists and contains Notes/ or Projects/ or Raw/, recognize it as an existing vault. If the path doesn't exist, ask if they want to create it.

4. Ask for author info

Ask for:

• Author name (for git commits)
• Author email (for git commits)

5. Write config

Create ~/.cortex/ directory if needed, then write ~/.cortex/config.json:

{
  "vault_path": "<user's answer>",
  "author": "<name>",
  "author_email": "<email>",
  "git": {
    "auto_commit": true,
    "auto_push": false,
    "commit_trailer": ""
  }
}

git.commit_trailer (string, optional, defaults to ""): when non-empty, the distill and evolve skills append it as the last line of their commit messages, for git hosting setups that expect a specific trailer. Only those two commits, the ones that add new Notes / Projects pages, carry it; raw and broadcast commits do not.

6. Initialize vault structure

Ensure these directories exist in the vault:

• Raw/
• Notes/
• Projects/

Those three are the whole taxonomy. Do not create Weekly/ — it is no longer a Cortexes content type. If an existing vault already has a Weekly/ directory, leave it and its files exactly where they are: never move, rewrite, or delete them. Tell the user it is no longer created, indexed, or searched, and that anything still worth keeping should be moved into Notes/ or Projects/ by hand, at their own pace.