compact

Compact

Every close is supposed to compact — the question in genius-file's format asked of each line, the answers routed. Snapshots drift anyway. /reconcile finds a snapshot over its ceiling or carrying history; this is what fixes one — errata's moves cannot, because nothing here is wrong, it is only in the wrong file.

The concept: the same question, the same destinations, applied where a close did not — and nothing moves before the user has seen what moves. The format owns the question, its destinations and its tie-breaks; reading it there is the first step. What this command adds is the retroactive pass, the proposal, and the checks below.

The counts as this command was invoked — every snapshot, whole and roster excluded, against the ceiling — and both directions of the invariant: links whose target or anchor is missing, log entries nothing links, keys with prose after them. Where a policy notice shows instead (shell injection disabled), run it before proposing:

python3 ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/../genius-file/measure.py snapshots
python3 ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/../genius-file/measure.py links

• Scope: a snapshot with a log beside it, in flight or done. Unlike /distill, being finished is no bar: routing a misfiled line is not correcting a wrong one (errata skill carries the carve-out). The log is appended to and never otherwise touched. A heading whose key carries prose after it is the case that most tempts a pass to break that rule; the format holds the repair, and it is the link, not the heading. ⚠ A link whose target is genuinely not in the log is reported, never repaired — check first that it is not the prose-after-key case. Repairing it would mean writing the log, which this command does not do, or guessing an anchor, which puts a wrong door where a missing one at least reads as missing; the call is the user's.
• A work in some other shape is brought to the format as it is routed. A contract still sitting in the snapshot goes to a CONTRACT.md created for it, in the right layer; a work sitting flat in .genius/ moves into its folder with the repository's own move, links rebased in both directions. Lines that answer "arrived with a slice" are never routed to the log to make the number work: that trade demotes live constraints to history. A brand-new work whose log has no first entry has nothing to route into; skip it.
• Read before proposing. The snapshot, the CONTRACT.md beside it, and the log's headings. Destinations are decided against the Slices list, so a full log read is never the price of this pass.
• Propose, then move. Read-only until the user has seen, per section, what leaves and where to (categories and counts, not a line-by-line ballot), the character count now and after, and every line you were unsure about: one answering two branches at once (say which way the tie-break went), one whose owning slice is not obvious, one whose log heading carries prose after the key. One confirmation covers the batch; a move the user has not seen is a silent one.
• Count the way the format counts, instrument and exclusions both: a full-text count reads a thirty-slice migration as bloated when its prose is half the ceiling, and every remedy you would then reach for is wrong. The count after is the same command run again once the moves are made, never arithmetic on the proposal.
• Under-ceiling is not the same as compacted, and this pass says which it found. A snapshot under its ceiling can still carry a closed slice's paragraph; one over it can be a large roster that is exactly right. Where the question moves nothing, say "nothing to route": that is a result.
• Where the count stays over after routing, say so and stop. The remedies from there are not this command's: a Problem section carrying design, an Open section nobody drained, a cut that is really two pieces of work. Name which it looks like; never shorten a kill-reason to make a number.