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provenance

Trace knowledge artifact lineage and sources. Find orphans, stale citations. Triggers: "where did this come from", "trace this learning", "knowledge lineage".

SKILL.md

Full skill instructions

Provenance Skill

Trace knowledge artifact lineage to sources.

Execution Steps

Given /​provenance <artifact>:

Step 1: Read the Artifact

Tool: Read
Parameters:
  file_path: <artifact-path>

Look for provenance metadata:

  • Source references
  • Session IDs
  • Dates
  • Related artifacts

Step 2: Trace Source Chain

# Check for source metadata in the file
grep -i "source\|session\|from\|extracted" <artifact-path>

# Search for related transcripts
ao forge search "<artifact-name>" 2>/​dev/​null

Step 3: Build Lineage Chain

Transcript (source of truth)
    ↓
Forge extraction (candidate)
    ↓
Human review (promotion)
    ↓
Pattern recognition (tier-up)
    ↓
Skill creation (automation)

Step 4: Write Provenance Report

# Provenance: <artifact-name>

## Current State
- **Tier:** <0-3>
- **Created:** <date>
- **Citations:** <count>

## Source Chain
1. **Origin:** <transcript or session>
   - Line/​context: <where extracted>
   - Extracted: <date>

2. **Promoted:** <tier change>
   - Reason: <why promoted>
   - Date: <when>

## Related Artifacts
- <related artifact 1>
- <related artifact 2>

Step 5: Report to User

Tell the user:

  1. Artifact lineage
  2. Original source
  3. Promotion history
  4. Related artifacts

Finding Orphans

/​provenance --orphans

Find artifacts without source tracking:

# Files without "Source:" or "Session:" metadata
for f in .agents/​learnings/​*.md; do
  grep -L "Source\|Session" "$f" 2>/​dev/​null
done

Finding Stale Artifacts

/​provenance --stale

Find artifacts where source may have changed:

# Artifacts older than their sources
find .agents/ -name "*.md" -mtime +30 2>/​dev/​null

Key Rules

  • Every insight has a source - trace it
  • Track promotions - know why tier changed
  • Find orphans - clean up untracked knowledge
  • Maintain lineage - provenance enables trust