network

Network & Relationships

This skill governs the network module of the Personal Brain OS. It covers contacts, interactions, and relationship tiers (circles). The network module is the most read-heavy module — meeting prep alone loads a full contact file plus up to 5 interaction files — so observation masking is critical.

All entity data lives in ~/brain/network/ as one markdown file per contact and one per interaction, with YAML frontmatter for machine-queryable fields and body sections for narrative context.

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When to Use This Skill

Load this skill for any of the following:

• Contact lookup — finding information about a specific person
• Meeting preparation — assembling context before a meeting or call
• Interaction logging — recording a meeting, call, coffee, or message
• Stale contact detection — identifying contacts past their follow-up cadence
• Contact creation — adding a new person to the network
• Circle management — reviewing or adjusting relationship tiers
• Introduction prep — preparing context for an intro between two contacts

Do NOT load this skill for content creation, engineering decisions, goal tracking, or journaling — those belong to other modules.

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Files in This Module

All paths relative to ~/brain/:

File	Purpose	When to Load
network/contacts/	Directory of contact .md files (one per person)	When looking up, creating, or reviewing contacts
network/interactions/	Directory of interaction .md files (one per meeting/call)	When logging meetings, reviewing history, meeting prep
network/circles.yaml	Circle definitions with default contact cadences	When checking stale contacts, managing relationship tiers

Setup check: If the network/contacts/ directory is missing or empty, inform the user and suggest using the /bootstrap command.

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Behavioral Rules

These rules operationalize AGENT.md Rules #6, #12, and #13 for the network module.

Rule NW-1 — Contact Lookup

When the user asks about a specific person:

1. Glob network/contacts/*.md (exclude _template.md), search by filename match for the requested name
2. If found: load the full contact file (frontmatter AND body) — the body contains ## Notes and ## Personal Context which provide essential narrative context
3. If not found: try partial match on filenames, then suggest creating a new contact
4. Never load all contacts in full — glob with frontmatter-only for scans, full load for specific lookups only

Rule NW-2 — Meeting Preparation

When the user asks to prepare for a meeting:

1. Find the contact file using NW-1 (load in full — body context is essential for prep)
2. Glob network/interactions/*.md, filter by contact: frontmatter field matching the contact's name
3. Sort matching interactions by date descending, load the last 5 in full
4. Branch by contact type:
   • Professional: focus on shared projects, recent topics, action items, professional context
   • Personal/family: focus on personal context, recent events, family updates, upcoming dates
5. Check operations/goals.yaml for any shared objectives with this contact
6. Generate a pre-meeting brief with: relationship summary, recent interaction highlights, suggested talking points, open action items

Rule NW-3 — Interaction Logging

When logging an interaction (AGENT.md Rule #6 — log immediately, never skip):

1. Create a new file in network/interactions/ using the naming pattern: YYYY-MM-DD Type with Full Name.md
2. Use the interaction-template.md frontmatter structure
3. Include [[Full Name]] wiki link in the body under ## Contact
4. Generate a unique id following the pattern int-YYYY-MMDD-NNN
5. Never skip logging because "there wasn't much to say" — even brief interactions build the relationship graph

Rule NW-4 — Stale Contact Detection

When checking for stale contacts:

1. Load network/circles.yaml for default cadences per circle tier
2. Glob network/contacts/*.md (exclude _template.md), load frontmatter only: last_contact, contact_frequency_days, circle, type, status
3. Filter to status: active contacts only
4. Compute days-since-last-contact for each: today - last_contact
5. Flag as stale if days-since exceeds contact_frequency_days (or circle default if field absent)
6. Return a ranked list: most overdue first, grouped by type (professional vs personal/family)

Rule NW-5 — Contact Creation

When adding a new contact:

1. Use the contact-template.md frontmatter structure from skills/network/references/
2. Generate a unique id using initials + number (e.g., jd-001)
3. Set last_contact to today's date
4. Set status: active and appropriate circle tier
5. Include [[wiki links]] in the body for any related entities

Rule NW-6 — File Loading Order

For meeting prep and contact tasks, load in this order:

1. network/contacts/Name.md       (full — body context needed)
2. network/interactions/*.md       (filtered, last 5, full)
3. network/circles.yaml            (if checking cadence)
4. operations/goals.yaml           (if checking shared objectives)

Never load all contacts before loading the specific one needed.

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Observation Masking

When searching contacts: glob network/contacts/*.md, load frontmatter only (id, name from filename, type, circle, last_contact, contact_frequency_days, tags). Return structured summary of matching contacts — never return full body content during directory scans.

For meeting prep: load the specific contact file in full (body + frontmatter), then glob network/interactions/*.md filtered by contact: field, load last 5 in full. This is the one scenario where full body loads are expected across multiple files.

For stale contact detection: frontmatter only from all active contacts. Return a ranked list — no body content.

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Reference Templates

These files live in skills/network/references/ and serve as starting templates for bootstrapping ~/brain/network/.

Template	Copies To	Purpose
contact-template.md	~/brain/network/contacts/_template.md	Contact frontmatter + body sections
interaction-template.md	~/brain/network/interactions/_template.md	Interaction frontmatter + body sections
circles-template.yaml	~/brain/network/circles.yaml	Circle tier definitions with cadences

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Version Notes

• v1.0.0 — Phase 3: initial network sub-skill. Covers contacts, interactions, and circles. Behavioral rules NW-1 through NW-6. Observation masking for directory glob reads. No JSONL references.