Write Captive Note

This sub-skill writes content to a Captive note in the vault, with validation to prevent accidental data loss.

Input Arguments

Arguments are passed as key-value pairs:

•path: Full path to the note (e.g., {{VAULT}}/00_Brain/Captive/Today.md)
•content: Markdown content to write

Instructions

1. Validate Path

Verify the path is within the Captive directory:

code

$VAULT/00_Brain/Captive/

If path is outside Captive, return error:

code

Error: Path must be within Captive directory. Got: {path}

2. Check Existing Content

If the file already exists:

•Read current content
•
If content is non-empty and different from new content:
- •Create a backup at {filename}.backup.md in the same directory
- •Log: "Backed up existing content to {backup_path}"

3. Write Content

Write the new content to the specified path.

4. Verify Write

Read back the file to confirm write succeeded.

Output

Return structured JSON:

json

{
  "success": true,
  "path": "/Users/.../00_Brain/Captive/Today.md",
  "backup_created": true,
  "backup_path": "/Users/.../00_Brain/Captive/Today.backup.md",
  "bytes_written": 2048
}

Or on error:

json

{
  "success": false,
  "error": "Description of what went wrong",
  "path": "/Users/.../00_Brain/Captive/Today.md"
}

Error Cases

Condition	Error Message
Path outside Captive	"Path must be within Captive directory"
Vault not found	"Vault directory does not exist: {vault}"
Write failed	"Failed to write file: {system_error}"
Verification failed	"Write verification failed: content mismatch"

Safety

•Always validate path is within Captive before writing
•Always backup existing non-empty content before overwriting
•Never write to Periodic or Semantic directories (use archive sub-skills for those)