mempalace-toolkit/contrib/README.md

contrib/ — automation recipes for mempalace-session

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.

Before using either: confirm the toolkit is installed and the wrapper works — mempalace-session --dry-run should list qualifying sessions. If that errors, fix the install before scheduling.

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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systemd user timer (recommended on modern Linux)

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.

Install:

mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user
cp contrib/systemd/mempalace-session.service ~/.config/systemd/user/
cp contrib/systemd/mempalace-session.timer   ~/.config/systemd/user/
systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now mempalace-session.timer

# Optional: keep the timer running when you log out (needed on headless servers)
sudo loginctl enable-linger "$USER"

Verify:

# Is the timer active and when will it next fire?
systemctl --user list-timers mempalace-session.timer

# Last run status + log tail
systemctl --user status mempalace-session.service

# Full run log (since today)
journalctl --user -u mempalace-session --since today

# Force a run right now (outside the schedule), for testing
systemctl --user start mempalace-session.service

Uninstall:

systemctl --user disable --now mempalace-session.timer
rm ~/.config/systemd/user/mempalace-session.{service,timer}
systemctl --user daemon-reload

What the service does

• Type=oneshot — runs to completion, not a long-lived daemon.
• ConditionPathExists=%h/.local/share/opencode/opencode.db — skips silently on machines that haven't used opencode (no wasted boot-time runs).
• ConditionPathExists=!%t/mempalace-session.lock + ExecStartPre/ExecStopPost — soft mutual exclusion between overlapping runs.
• Nice=10 + IOSchedulingClass=idle — background priority; won't interfere with interactive work.
• TimeoutStartSec=7200 — 2 hour ceiling. The reference 60-session mine takes ~21 min; this is headroom for large corpora + slow disks.

What the timer does

• OnCalendar=Mon 03:00 — weekly, Monday 03:00 local time. Edit to taste (see man systemd.time for syntax).
• Persistent=true — if the machine was off at the scheduled time, run on next boot.
• RandomizedDelaySec=30m — jitters up to 30 minutes to avoid thundering-herd across a fleet.

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launchd user agent (macOS)

Why: the macOS-native equivalent of a systemd user timer. Runs without a Terminal window open, logs to ~/Library/Logs/, single-instance guarantees baked in, background-priority scheduling via ProcessType=Background. No Homebrew or third-party scheduler required.

Caveats vs. systemd:

Systemd feature	launchd equivalent	Notes
Persistent=true catches missed runs	Partial — StartCalendarInterval fires on next system-awake time	If the Mac is fully off at scheduled time, the run is skipped. Sleep-at-schedule → fires on wake.
RandomizedDelaySec=30m	None native	Single-user machines rarely need jitter; add a sleep $((RANDOM % 1800)) wrapper if you do.
ConditionPathExists	None native	mempalace-session exits cleanly when the opencode DB is missing, so no guard is strictly needed.
Lock file for overlap prevention	Automatic	launchd refuses to start a second instance of the same Label while one is running.

Install:

# Substitute your username into the template
sed "s|USER|$USER|g" contrib/launchd/se.jordbo.mempalace-session.plist \
  > ~/Library/LaunchAgents/se.jordbo.mempalace-session.plist

# Ensure the log directory exists
mkdir -p ~/Library/Logs

# Modern load (macOS 10.11+). "gui/$(id -u)" targets your login session.
launchctl bootstrap "gui/$(id -u)" ~/Library/LaunchAgents/se.jordbo.mempalace-session.plist
launchctl enable "gui/$(id -u)/se.jordbo.mempalace-session"

On older macOS or if you hit permissions errors with bootstrap, fall back to the legacy form: launchctl load -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/se.jordbo.mempalace-session.plist

Verify:

# Quick check — is the job registered?
launchctl list | grep mempalace-session

# Detailed state (next run time, last exit code, throttling)
launchctl print "gui/$(id -u)/se.jordbo.mempalace-session"

# Run log tail
tail -f ~/Library/Logs/mempalace-session.log
tail -f ~/Library/Logs/mempalace-session.err.log

# Force a run right now (outside the schedule), for testing
launchctl kickstart -p "gui/$(id -u)/se.jordbo.mempalace-session"

Uninstall:

launchctl bootout "gui/$(id -u)" ~/Library/LaunchAgents/se.jordbo.mempalace-session.plist
rm ~/Library/LaunchAgents/se.jordbo.mempalace-session.plist
# Optional — keep the old logs for post-mortem, or delete them:
# rm ~/Library/Logs/mempalace-session{,.err}.log

What the plist does

• Label=se.jordbo.mempalace-session — reverse-DNS label; shows up in launchctl list and Console.app. Change the prefix if you're forking this for a different org.
• ProgramArguments — absolute path to mempalace-session. Template uses /Users/USER/.local/bin/mempalace-session; the install sed substitutes your actual username.
• EnvironmentVariables.PATH — covers ~/.local/bin, Apple Silicon Homebrew (/opt/homebrew/bin), Intel Homebrew (/usr/local/bin), and system defaults. launchd agents get a minimal PATH by default, and mempalace-session needs to find mempalace + python3.
• StartCalendarInterval — Weekday=1, Hour=3, Minute=0 = Monday 03:00. Omit any key to match "any" (e.g. drop Weekday for daily).
• RunAtLoad=false — don't run on load/reboot, only on schedule. Flip to true if you want a run at every boot.
• ProcessType=Background + LowPriorityIO=true + Nice=10 — macOS throttles this job's CPU and I/O so it yields to interactive work.
• ExitTimeOut=7200 — 2h ceiling, matches the systemd unit.
• StandardOut/ErrorPath — ~/Library/Logs/ is the macOS convention; Console.app picks these up automatically.

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cron

Why: simpler, ubiquitous, works on any UNIX. No loginctl enable-linger dance, no user-units awareness required.

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. Also: cron is not installed by default on minimal Debian/Ubuntu hosts (nor on most container images). Check with command -v crontab — if absent, sudo apt install cron (or equivalent) first, or use the systemd timer instead.

Install:

# Edit the template first — replace USER with your actual username
sed "s|USER|$USER|g" contrib/cron/mempalace-session.cron > /tmp/mempalace-session.cron

# Append to your existing crontab (preserves any entries you already have)
(crontab -l 2>/dev/null; cat /tmp/mempalace-session.cron) | crontab -
rm /tmp/mempalace-session.cron

# Verify
crontab -l | grep mempalace

Ensure ~/.cache/mempalace-session/ exists so the log file can be written:

mkdir -p ~/.cache/mempalace-session

Verify a run is happening:

# Tail the log the cron entry writes to
tail -f ~/.cache/mempalace-session/cron.log

# Or force a run manually to prove the command is well-formed
mempalace-session

Uninstall:

crontab -e   # remove the mempalace-session line by hand

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Which should I pick?

Situation	Pick
Desktop / laptop, mempalace installed directly on the host, modern systemd-based Linux	systemd/mempalace-session.{service,timer}
macOS (any recent version), mempalace on the host	launchd/se.jordbo.mempalace-session.plist
Long-running Linux devbox or server, mempalace on the host	systemd/mempalace-session.{service,timer}
opencode-devbox (or similar) container with mempalace inside it	systemd/mempalace-session-devbox.{service,timer} (preferred) or cron/mempalace-session-devbox.cron (simpler)
BSD, Alpine, or Linux distro without systemd	cron/mempalace-session.cron
You already have a cron-based job scheduler on the box	any cron/*.cron template
You want logs in journalctl (Linux) or Console.app (macOS) rather than a file	systemd user timer / launchd

If you're not sure: systemd on Linux, launchd on macOS, cron only when neither is available. Use the -devbox variant when mempalace lives inside a long-running container rather than on the host. All templates wrap the same mempalace-session command — the difference is purely in where the scheduler lives and whether it needs to docker exec into a container to reach the tool.

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Running inside a container (devbox)

If you run opencode inside a long-lived container like opencode-devbox, neither systemd nor cron is running inside that container — they're host-level services. The correct pattern is host-side scheduling that docker execs into the running container. The *-devbox templates in contrib/systemd/ and contrib/cron/ implement exactly this.

Preconditions:

• Long-lived container. docker compose up -d with restart: unless-stopped (or equivalent). If the container is ephemeral (per-invocation), this pattern doesn't apply.
• mempalace-session is already installed inside the container. opencode-devbox bakes it in from v1.14.30b onward (see the INSTALL_MEMPALACE_TOOLKIT arg). For earlier images or custom containers without the toolkit installed, run ./install.sh --yes from a mempalace-toolkit checkout inside the container first — the installer is idempotent and safe to re-run. Note that a manual install lives in the container's ephemeral layer and is lost on docker compose up --force-recreate, so the bake-in approach is the durable solution.
• Host user can talk to docker. Member of the docker group on Linux, or Docker Desktop running under the current login session on macOS.
• Canonical container name is opencode-devbox. If you renamed it via container_name: or docker-compose project naming, adjust CONTAINER in the template.

Both devbox templates guard against "container currently stopped" — they no-op silently if docker ps shows no running container with the expected name. That makes the timer safe to leave enabled across dev cycles where you tear the container down and bring it back up.

systemd user timer (host-side, devbox variant)

# Install
mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user
cp contrib/systemd/mempalace-session-devbox.service ~/.config/systemd/user/
cp contrib/systemd/mempalace-session-devbox.timer   ~/.config/systemd/user/
systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now mempalace-session-devbox.timer

# Keep the timer running across logout (typical on dev hosts)
sudo loginctl enable-linger "$USER"

Customize container name / user (if you don't use the defaults):

systemctl --user edit mempalace-session-devbox.service
# In the override that opens, set:
#   [Service]
#   Environment=CONTAINER=my-devbox-name
#   Environment=CONTAINER_USER=my-user

Or edit the shipped service file in place before copying.

Verify:

systemctl --user list-timers mempalace-session-devbox.timer
systemctl --user status mempalace-session-devbox.service
journalctl --user -u mempalace-session-devbox --since today

# Force a run right now (while the container is up)
systemctl --user start mempalace-session-devbox.service

Behaviour when the container is down: ExecCondition fails, service is marked "condition failed" (considered a successful no-op by systemd), no alert noise. Bring the container back up and the next scheduled fire will run normally.

Uninstall:

systemctl --user disable --now mempalace-session-devbox.timer
rm ~/.config/systemd/user/mempalace-session-devbox.{service,timer}
systemctl --user daemon-reload

cron (host-side, devbox variant)

# Read the template — it has CONTAINER / CONTAINER_USER at the top.
# Adjust if your setup differs from opencode-devbox defaults.
cat contrib/cron/mempalace-session-devbox.cron

# Install (preserves existing crontab entries)
(crontab -l 2>/dev/null; cat contrib/cron/mempalace-session-devbox.cron) | crontab -

# Ensure the log directory exists
mkdir -p ~/.cache/mempalace-session

# Verify
crontab -l | grep mempalace-session-devbox
tail -f ~/.cache/mempalace-session/cron-devbox.log

Uninstall:

crontab -e   # remove the mempalace-session-devbox line by hand

When to pick devbox variants vs direct ones

Setup	Templates to use
mempalace installed directly on the host (no devbox)	mempalace-session.{service,timer}, mempalace-session.cron, se.jordbo.mempalace-session.plist
opencode-devbox container is where opencode + mempalace live	mempalace-session-devbox.{service,timer}, mempalace-session-devbox.cron
Both (rare — mempalace on host AND inside a separate devbox)	Install both; they write to separate palaces.

The in-container mempalace sees only the container's opencode.db and palace (via named volumes). The host's mempalace, if installed, sees only the host's. Two parallel palaces don't cross-pollinate — decide where you want the source of truth to live and schedule accordingly.

Alternative not documented here

"Run systemd inside the container" is technically viable (systemd-in-docker images exist) but adds non-trivial complexity for the sake of a once-weekly batch job. The host-scheduled approach above is equivalent in outcome and much simpler. Skip systemd-in-container unless you already have other reasons to need it.

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Tuning

Frequency. Weekly is the default because:

• New sessions you care about are typically a handful per week per user.
• Dedup is free on unchanged sessions, so there's no cost to running daily other than the ~5 min post-mine repair.
• Weekly keeps the palace fresh enough that searches almost always return current context.

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.

Monthly: probably too infrequent. You'll search for "that thing we discussed last Tuesday" and miss it.

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See also

• ../../ARCHITECTURE.md §5 — operational routine (triggers, cadence) in full context.
• ../../SKILL.md — the agent-side Operational Routine section for when an AI agent should suggest running this.