Currency Audit

Full assessment: external freshness + internal consistency + semantic accuracy. Stamp only when all pass.

brain-qa.cjs checks the date mechanically. This skill defines the full review that earns that date. A currency stamp means both "content matches external reality" AND "content is internally consistent."

Critical Thinking Discipline

Every audit item must pass through critical thinking — not just mechanical verification. Apply these disciplines throughout:

The key question at every checklist item: "Am I verifying this is correct, or am I assuming it's correct because it looks plausible?"

Skill Tier Definitions

Every skill must declare a tier: in frontmatter. Three valid tiers exist. During currency audit, validate the tier assignment against these criteria.

Core

Skills that apply to virtually every task or are safety-critical. Failure to apply creates risk of harm or quality degradation.

Decision test: "Would skipping this skill on any arbitrary task create risk of incorrect, unsafe, or low-quality output?"

Characteristics:

• Always-on or near-universal activation (applyTo: "**" or very broad patterns)
• Epistemic integrity (anti-hallucination, awareness, critical-thinking)
• Code quality fundamentals (code-review, testing-strategies, debugging-patterns)
• Safety gates (security-review, terminal-command-safety)
• Platform essentials (git-workflow, vscode-extension-patterns)
• Brain maintenance (currency-audit, memory-activation, north-star)

Count guideline: ~20-30 skills. If core exceeds 30, some are likely standard.

Standard

Skills for recognized professional domains used across many projects. Activated by pattern matching on specific file types or keywords.

Decision test: "Does this skill serve a common professional domain that many different projects would benefit from?"

Characteristics:

• Domain-specific but broadly applicable (API design, Azure patterns, data analysis, dashboard design)
• Activated by file patterns or domain keywords, not universally
• Would be useful in >25% of heir projects
• Has a matching instruction (trifecta complete)

Count guideline: ~100-120 skills. The largest tier — the working library.

Extended

Skills for specialized, niche, or personal use cases. Narrow audience or uncommon workflows.

Decision test: "Does this skill serve a narrow audience, a single project, or an uncommon use case?"

Characteristics:

• Specialized domains (academic writing, KDP publishing, game design, comedy writing)
• Personal tools (correax-brand, alex-character, dissertation-defense)
• Rare workflows (fabric-notebook-publish, terminal-image-rendering)
• Would be useful in <25% of heir projects
• May lack trifecta (instruction not needed for rare activation)

Count guideline: ~50-60 skills. If extended exceeds 60, consider whether some should be standard.

Invalid Tiers

No other tier values are valid. During audit, fix any stray values (advanced, expert, etc.) to the correct tier per the decision tests above.

When to Use

• brain-health-grid shows files with expired or missing currency dates
• Before a release that ships brain files to heirs
• On a scheduled cadence (target: full audit every 90 days)
• After a major external change (new API version, deprecated pattern, VS Code update)

Quick Reference

Audit Process

1. Triage

Generate the grid and read the Priority Queue:

node .github/muscles/brain-qa.cjs

The Priority Queue in .github/quality/brain-health-grid.md is sorted: failing first, then missing currency, then oldest. Work top-down.

Batch size: 10-15 files per session. Larger batches cause quality drift.

2. Per-File Review Checklist

For each file, work through this checklist:

Frontmatter Check

• currency field exists and is a valid YYYY-MM-DD date
• description accurately reflects current content (not stale summary)
• applyTo patterns still match the intended activation scope
• tier value is one of core, standard, extended — no other values allowed
• tier assignment passes the correct decision test (see Skill Tier Definitions above)
• Type-specific fields present (see brain-qa grid for requirements)

Content Freshness Check

• API references: Do referenced APIs still exist? Check for deprecations, renamed methods, new parameters
• Version numbers: Are pinned versions still current? (Node.js, VS Code API, Azure SDKs, etc.)
• URL links: Do referenced URLs still resolve? Are they the canonical location?
• Best practices: Has the community consensus changed? Check official docs, changelogs
• Tool availability: Are referenced CLI tools, extensions, or services still available?
• Code examples: Do code snippets still compile/run against current versions?

Semantic Consistency Check

• Terminology: File uses current terms, not deprecated synonyms (e.g., "skills" not "DK files", "skills/" not "domain-knowledge/")
• Claims match reality: Do documented features, commands, or capabilities actually exist in code?
• Cross-references: Links to other skills, agents, instructions, or files are correct and targets exist
• No contradictions: File doesn't conflict with related files covering the same topic
• Process logic: If the file documents a workflow, each step's prerequisites exist and outputs are real
• Architecture alignment: Any structural claims (counts, relationships, directory layouts) match current state

Structural Check

• No token waste: Remove Mermaid diagrams in non-teaching skills, redundant examples, excessive prose
• Progressive disclosure: Most important info first, advanced topics later
• Actionable content: Every section helps the LLM produce better output

Inheritance Check (skills only)

• If inh=1 (master-only): verify file is listed in .github/config/MASTER-ALEX-PROTECTED.json
• If inh=0 (inheritable): verify no master-specific content (Master Alex references, workspace paths)

3. Update and Stamp

Stamp only after ALL checklist sections pass — frontmatter, freshness, semantic consistency, structural, and inheritance. A partial review does not earn a date stamp.

1. Make all content fixes (freshness + semantic + structural)
2. Update currency: YYYY-MM-DD in frontmatter to today's date
3. If the file's description changed meaning, update it

4. Verify

Re-run brain-qa to confirm the file now passes:

node .github/muscles/brain-qa.cjs --stdout | grep "filename"
# PowerShell: node .github/muscles/brain-qa.cjs --stdout | Select-String "filename"

Type-Specific Guidance

Skills

Instructions

Agents

Prompts

Muscles

Batch Audit Workflow

For auditing many files efficiently:

1. Sort by category: Group files by domain (Azure, VS Code, testing, etc.) so research carries across files
2. Research once per domain: Check the domain's latest changelog/release notes once, apply to all files in that domain
3. Parallel reads: Read 5-6 files at once, note which need changes, then edit in sequence
4. Stamp in bulk: After verifying all changes, stamp dates. Use brain-qa to confirm all pass

Common Findings

Stale File Decision Table (AC2)

When a file's currency stamp is expired or missing, decide before acting:

Rule: Never re-stamp without reviewing. A stamp is an attestation, not a date bump.

Semantic Obsolescence Review Queue (FM5)

When a brain file's currency window elapses or it enters the lifecycle warning band, it enters the review queue (.github/quality/review-queue.jsonl). The queue is the bridge between mechanical detection ("this file is overdue") and semantic judgment ("should this be updated, archived, or re-stamped?").

Queue Entry Schema

Each line in review-queue.jsonl is a JSON object:

{
  "file": ".github/instructions/example.instructions.md",
  "reason": "currency-expired",
  "lifecycle": "stable",
  "currency": "2025-11-15",
  "daysSinceCurrency": 158,
  "reviewEvery": 90,
  "addedAt": "2026-04-25T12:00:00Z",
  "status": "pending"
}

Queue Entry Reasons

Queue Review Decision Table

Queue Status Lifecycle

pending → in-review → resolved (updated | re-stamped | deprecated | archived)
                   → deferred (with rationale + re-review date)

Integration Points

• brain-qa.cjs: Scans currency stamps → adds currency-expired entries to queue
• FM8a (lifecycle currency windows): Feeds lifecycle-warning entries
• FM10 (health metric): Reads queue length as a health signal
• Heir feedback: heir-feedback entries added when feedback references specific files

Related Skills

• [doc-hygiene](../doc-hygiene/SKILL.md) — Anti-drift rules for living documents
• [token-waste-elimination](../token-waste-elimination/SKILL.md) — Reduce token cost in brain files
• [documentation-quality-assurance](../documentation-quality-assurance/SKILL.md) — 6-pass quality pipeline for user-facing docs (broader scope than brain files)