Joakim Persson
36845e14b2
Until opencode session-stopping hooks land upstream, mempalace-session
is the entire mechanism that gets opencode conversations into the
palace — skip it and session history stays trapped in a local SQLite
DB, invisible to semantic search. Previous docs covered setup well
but were thin on when and how often to run it.
- ARCHITECTURE.md §5: replace the one-line 'When to re-mine' note with
a full Operational Routine section — triggers, cadence, relationship
to the session lifecycle, automation pointers, verification.
- SKILL.md: add an Operational Routine section aimed at agents —
when to suggest invoking the tool, cadence guidance, how to
distinguish this producer-side tool from the consumer-side
mempalace skill's in-session habits.
- README.md: add 'Keeping it fresh' subsection pointing at contrib/
and the full docs.
contrib/ ships three ready-to-use templates:
- systemd/mempalace-session.{service,timer} — user units with weekly
Mon 03:00 schedule, Persistent=true catch-up, RandomizedDelaySec for
fleet-wide jitter, ConditionPathExists guard for opencode-less boxes,
Nice+IOSchedulingClass=idle so it never fights interactive work.
- cron/mempalace-session.cron — sample crontab entry with log
redirection and clear USER-substitution instructions.
- README.md with install/verify/uninstall recipes for both, a chooser
table (systemd vs cron), container/devbox caveats, and tuning notes
(daily vs weekly vs monthly trade-offs).
The user's LATER-list item 'wrap mempalace-session in cron/systemd
timer for true auto-save coverage' is now actionable: a single
systemctl --user enable --now command stands it up.
155 lines
6.0 KiB
Markdown
155 lines
6.0 KiB
Markdown
# contrib/ — automation recipes for `mempalace-session`
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Manual invocation of `mempalace-session` is fine on a machine you actively drive. For long-running devboxes, a weekly automated mine keeps the palace fresh without thinking about it. This directory ships ready-to-use templates for two common scheduling mechanisms.
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> **Before using either**: confirm the toolkit is installed and the wrapper works —
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> `mempalace-session --dry-run` should list qualifying sessions. If that errors, fix the install before scheduling.
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Pick **one**. Running both would double-mine (harmless — dedup skips everything on the second run — but wastes wall time on the HNSW repair).
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---
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## systemd user timer (recommended on modern Linux)
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**Why:** runs without the user logged in (with `loginctl enable-linger`), survives reboots, logs to `journalctl`, Persistent=true catches missed runs after the machine was off. No root required — it's a *user* unit.
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**Install:**
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```bash
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mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user
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cp contrib/systemd/mempalace-session.service ~/.config/systemd/user/
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cp contrib/systemd/mempalace-session.timer ~/.config/systemd/user/
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systemctl --user daemon-reload
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systemctl --user enable --now mempalace-session.timer
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# Optional: keep the timer running when you log out (needed on headless servers)
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sudo loginctl enable-linger "$USER"
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```
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**Verify:**
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```bash
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# Is the timer active and when will it next fire?
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systemctl --user list-timers mempalace-session.timer
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# Last run status + log tail
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systemctl --user status mempalace-session.service
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# Full run log (since today)
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journalctl --user -u mempalace-session --since today
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# Force a run right now (outside the schedule), for testing
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systemctl --user start mempalace-session.service
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```
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**Uninstall:**
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```bash
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systemctl --user disable --now mempalace-session.timer
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rm ~/.config/systemd/user/mempalace-session.{service,timer}
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systemctl --user daemon-reload
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```
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### What the service does
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- `Type=oneshot` — runs to completion, not a long-lived daemon.
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- `ConditionPathExists=%h/.local/share/opencode/opencode.db` — skips silently on machines that haven't used opencode (no wasted boot-time runs).
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- `ConditionPathExists=!%t/mempalace-session.lock` + `ExecStartPre/ExecStopPost` — soft mutual exclusion between overlapping runs.
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- `Nice=10` + `IOSchedulingClass=idle` — background priority; won't interfere with interactive work.
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- `TimeoutStartSec=7200` — 2 hour ceiling. The reference 60-session mine takes ~21 min; this is headroom for large corpora + slow disks.
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### What the timer does
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- `OnCalendar=Mon 03:00` — weekly, Monday 03:00 local time. Edit to taste (see `man systemd.time` for syntax).
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- `Persistent=true` — if the machine was off at the scheduled time, run on next boot.
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- `RandomizedDelaySec=30m` — jitters up to 30 minutes to avoid thundering-herd across a fleet.
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---
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## cron
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**Why:** simpler, ubiquitous, works on any UNIX. No `loginctl enable-linger` dance, no user-units awareness required.
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**Caveats:** no "persistent" semantics (a missed run while the machine was off stays missed); default cron output goes to mail or is silently dropped if no MTA.
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**Install:**
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```bash
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# Edit the template first — replace USER with your actual username
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sed "s|USER|$USER|g" contrib/cron/mempalace-session.cron > /tmp/mempalace-session.cron
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# Append to your existing crontab (preserves any entries you already have)
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(crontab -l 2>/dev/null; cat /tmp/mempalace-session.cron) | crontab -
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rm /tmp/mempalace-session.cron
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# Verify
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crontab -l | grep mempalace
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```
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Ensure `~/.cache/mempalace-session/` exists so the log file can be written:
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```bash
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mkdir -p ~/.cache/mempalace-session
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```
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**Verify a run is happening:**
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```bash
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# Tail the log the cron entry writes to
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tail -f ~/.cache/mempalace-session/cron.log
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# Or force a run manually to prove the command is well-formed
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mempalace-session
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```
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**Uninstall:**
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```bash
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crontab -e # remove the mempalace-session line by hand
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```
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---
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## Which should I pick?
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| Situation | Pick |
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|---|---|
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| Desktop / laptop, modern systemd-based distro | systemd user timer |
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| Long-running devbox or server, wants "Persistent=true" catch-up | systemd user timer |
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| macOS, BSD, or distro without systemd | cron |
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| You already have a cron-based job scheduler on the box | cron |
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| You want logs in `journalctl` rather than a file | systemd user timer |
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If you're not sure, pick systemd. `Persistent=true` alone is worth it on any box that ever sleeps or reboots.
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---
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## Running inside a container (devbox)
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Inside a Docker-based devbox, neither systemd nor cron typically runs by default. Two options:
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1. **Schedule on the host, not the container** — have the host run `docker exec -u <user> <container> mempalace-session` on a timer. The container must be long-running (not per-invocation) for this to work.
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2. **Run a systemd-in-container setup** — viable but usually not worth the complexity for this alone.
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For most devbox users, a simple weekly manual run via `mempalace-session` (or a host-side cron that shells into the container) is the pragmatic choice. The tool is cheap enough that skipping a week costs nothing — dedup will catch up on the next run.
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---
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## Tuning
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**Frequency.** Weekly is the default because:
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- New sessions you care about are typically a handful per week per user.
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- Dedup is free on unchanged sessions, so there's no cost to running daily other than the ~5 min post-mine repair.
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- Weekly keeps the palace fresh enough that searches almost always return current context.
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**Daily or more:** edit `OnCalendar=` or the cron DOW field. On a daily schedule, add `--no-repair` to the wrapper invocation and let a separate weekly unit handle repair — otherwise you repair 7× more often than you need.
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**Monthly:** probably too infrequent. You'll search for "that thing we discussed last Tuesday" and miss it.
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---
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## See also
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- [`../../ARCHITECTURE.md`](../../ARCHITECTURE.md) §5 — operational routine (triggers, cadence) in full context.
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- [`../../SKILL.md`](../../SKILL.md) — the agent-side Operational Routine section for when an AI agent should suggest running this.
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