43 added, 27 removed. Audit A to A.
---
name: nova-operations
description: "đź’ Nova setup, continuity, status, update, and recovery."
---
# Keep Nova operational without making the user become IT
- Use this skill when the user asks to set up Nova-owned persistent data, inspect persistence or product status, diagnose a Nova-specific failure, run a bundled durable service, use Worldline, update the Free edition, roll back, remove it, or understand where Nova stores data. Do not intercept ordinary work or require onboarding before first value.
+ Use this skill when the user asks to set up Nova's data estate, inspect persistence or product status, upgrade an earlier estate, diagnose a Nova-specific failure, run one of Nova's durable services, use Worldline, update Nova Free, roll back, remove it, or understand where Nova stores data. Do not intercept ordinary work or require onboarding before first value.
## Inspect before changing
Run the read-only status path first:
- python -B -X utf8 scripts/nova_estate.py status
+ ```text
+ python -B -X utf8 scripts/nova_estate.py status
+ ```
- Use doctor when a symptom suggests broken selectors, an unavailable Continuity workspace, a missing service entrypoint, or package damage. Preserve the exact symptom. Keep package presence, host discovery, estate configuration, service support, and model behavior separate.
+ Status reports Cognitive Continuity read support and mutation support separately, then reports canonical Commonplace verification independently from derived Concordance freshness or availability. Use `doctor` when a symptom suggests broken selectors, an unavailable Continuity workspace, a missing service directory, or package damage. Preserve the exact symptom and distinguish package presence, host discovery, estate configuration, service support, and model behavior. Never reset the harness, delete unrelated plugins, or erase state as a diagnostic shortcut.
- ## Configure the optional Nova estate
+ ## Set up the optional Nova estate
- Ordinary Nova work requires no estate. Persistent Continuity, Dunbar, and Corkboard writes require one customer-controlled root outside .codex.
+ Persistent Nova-owned state is optional for ordinary work and required before Nova writes durable continuity, project, people, reminder, or deliberate general-note and capture records. Run `plan` with the intended absolute root and show its proposed root, selectors, directories, and existing-state result. Default to the operating system's per-user application-data location outside `.codex`; accept another customer-controlled absolute path.
- First plan the exact root:
+ Obtain explicit confirmation immediately before `init`. Initialization is transactional: it publishes the estate only after Cognitive Continuity, an empty generation-zero Commonplace, a bound empty Concordance, and every registry artifact are complete, and it removes staging residue if any service initialization fails. It never overwrites an existing root, selector registry, or Continuity workspace.
- python -B -X utf8 scripts/nova_estate.py plan --root "<absolute root>"
+ One exception repairs the known Nova Free v1.0.0 macOS failure footprint automatically. If the root contains only the exact empty Corkboard, Dunbar, and Project Management directories left before Continuity rejected initialization—and no registry, manifest, Continuity manifest, or unknown file—status reports legacy_1_0_0_partial and a retry replaces that revalidated empty residue with the completed estate. Any unknown content stops repair and remains untouched.
- Show the proposed root, selectors, directories, and existing-state result. Obtain explicit confirmation immediately before init:
+ ```text
+ python -B -X utf8 scripts/nova_estate.py plan --root "<absolute root>"
+ python -B -X utf8 scripts/nova_estate.py init --root "<absolute root>" --user "<opaque local user id>"
+ ```
- python -B -X utf8 scripts/nova_estate.py init --root "<absolute root>" --user "<opaque local user id>"
+ A nondefault root also receives one small platform-configuration pointer so a later GUI-launched agent can discover the current estate without a shell profile. The pointer contains no user records and has no selector authority; the estate registry must corroborate it. The platform-default root needs no duplicate pointer.
- Initialization is transactional. It publishes only after Cognitive Continuity and the registry artifacts are complete. It does not overwrite an existing root, registry, or Continuity workspace. A nondefault root receives a small platform configuration pointer; that pointer contains no user records and has no selector authority.
+ On Windows only, the user may separately request the optional convenience flag `--apply-user-environment`. It copies the registry selectors into the current user's environment and requires a fresh desktop-app process before those ambient values appear. Never pass that Windows-only flag on macOS or Linux. Nova's own launcher does not require global environment variables or a restart.
- The optional --apply-user-environment flag is Windows-only convenience and requires explicit request. The registry-backed launcher does not require global environment variables or a restart.
+ ## Run stateful Nova services
- ## Run stateful services through the registry
+ The registry at `estate/path-selectors.json` is the correctness path. Use the single launcher below for Cognitive Continuity, Dunbar, Corkboard, Project Management, and Commonplace. It removes inherited Nova selectors, injects one exact registry snapshot, and invokes the bundled script directly without a shell.
- The registry at estate/path-selectors.json is the correctness path. Use the launcher so inherited process variables cannot silently redirect Nova-owned state:
+ ```text
+ python -B -X utf8 scripts/nova_estate.py run continuity -- <continuity arguments>
+ python -B -X utf8 scripts/nova_estate.py run dunbar -- <dunbar arguments>
+ python -B -X utf8 scripts/nova_estate.py run corkboard -- <corkboard arguments>
+ python -B -X utf8 scripts/nova_estate.py run project-management -- <project arguments>
+ python -B -X utf8 scripts/nova_estate.py run commonplace -- <commonplace arguments>
+ ```
- python -B -X utf8 scripts/nova_estate.py run continuity -- <continuity arguments>
- python -B -X utf8 scripts/nova_estate.py run dunbar -- <dunbar arguments>
- python -B -X utf8 scripts/nova_estate.py run corkboard -- <corkboard arguments>
+ Add `--root "<absolute root>"` before the service name only when deliberately addressing an explicit estate rather than the current discovered estate. Do not invoke the bundled service scripts directly for Nova-owned state: doing so would make inherited process environment part of correctness again.
- Use --root before the service name only when deliberately addressing an explicit estate.
+ Commonplace 0.2.0 exposes 25 commands. Estate initialization and ordinary `rebuild` remain lexical and require no model. Semantic or hybrid retrieval is an explicit post-initialization choice using the customer's loopback Ollama embedding service; no model is bundled or activated automatically. `federated-search` has fixed read-only adapters for Dunbar, Corkboard, Dennis, and Continuity. `history` and `as-of` read authenticated retained state. Promotion commands create and export non-executable proposals only; they never write a target owner. Installation, estate setup, and retrieval grant none of these commands mutation authority.
- Worldline remains read-only:
+ Before persistence setup, confirm that Python 3.10 or newer is already available to the harness. Do not silently install or replace Python. If a suitable runtime is unavailable, ordinary Nova work remains available. State that deterministic diagnostics and persistent Worldline, Project Management, Dunbar, Corkboard, Commonplace, and Concordance operations are unavailable; do not counterfeit a save or project record.
- python -B -X utf8 scripts/nova_estate.py worldline --mode <resume|status|checkpoint|inspect> --project "<project>" --task "<task>"
+ ## Upgrade an existing estate
- A Worldline checkpoint is a view, not a save receipt.
+ A status of `upgrade_required` means the registry lacks a required selector. Run `plan` against the same root, show the proposed change, obtain explicit confirmation, then run:
- Before persistent setup, confirm Python 3.10 or newer is already available. Do not silently install or replace Python. If it is unavailable, ordinary Nova work remains available and persistent service operations are unavailable; never counterfeit a save.
+ ```text
+ python -B -X utf8 scripts/nova_estate.py upgrade --root "<existing absolute root>"
+ ```
- ## Upgrade and recovery
+ For the known additive 1.0.3 to 1.0.4 migration, the state-sensitive plan names only the selectors and empty service roots that are actually missing. Upgrade stages and verifies an empty canonical Commonplace and its rebuildable Concordance, updates the environment helper and product-owned service metadata, then publishes the registry as its commit point. A historical `nova-data-estate/v1` manifest remains byte-for-byte untouched; Nova Operations writes the additive `estate/nova-emergent-services.json` sidecar instead. Existing non-null `MIND_CORE_DATABASE` and `MIND_HOOK_RECEIPT_DIRECTORY` values remain unchanged in legacy registry and helper metadata but are never forwarded by the Nova service launcher. New estates keep both values null. Upgrade establishes the nondefault-root locator only when absent; a valid preexisting locator is corroborated and preserved byte-for-byte. It optionally applies Windows user-environment convenience only when that flag was explicitly requested. It does not move, merge, initialize over, or delete existing service data. A conflicting selector, pre-existing unregistered Commonplace or Concordance target, invalid core selector, malformed product-service sidecar, or current-estate locator stops before mutation and remains unchanged.
- Upgrade preserves existing records and extra selectors while refreshing the Free edition binding:
+ ## Serve Worldline
- python -B -X utf8 scripts/nova_estate.py upgrade --root "<existing absolute root>"
+ Resolve one project key under the Cognitive Continuity contract before invocation. Preserve the winning source tier in visible work. The compatibility command remains:
- Plan, show the proposed change, and obtain explicit confirmation before mutation. An estate created by a larger Nova edition may contain extra selectors such as DENNIS_PROJECT_HOME. Free Nova accepts and preserves them but does not inject, create, or claim their service.
+ ```text
+ python -B -X utf8 scripts/nova_estate.py worldline --mode <resume|status|checkpoint|inspect> --project "<project key>" --task "<live task>" --user "<user id>"
+ ```
- Read references/estate-contract.md before initialization, upgrade, recovery, export, rollback, or removal. Never delete user data merely because a plugin is removed. Backups and exports must go to a user-chosen destination outside the active Nova selector boundary.
+ It uses the same registry-backed launcher. Worldline never writes; a checkpoint remains ephemeral. Project purpose and delivery governance remain owned by `dennis-stratton-project-management`.
- Finish with the useful result, the observed state, and one exact re-entry condition if a guarantee remains unavailable.
+ ## Update, roll back, or remove
+ Use the package's `SUPPORT.md`, `START-HERE.md`, and `CHANGELOG.md`. Record the active product version, marketplace source, plugin state, and Nova data root before changing them. Preserve user data and other capabilities by default. Replacing plugin bytes, changing the current-estate pointer, applying Windows environment convenience, upgrading stores, deleting stores, and removing external exports are separate actions requiring separate authority.
+
+ Finish with the product result, observed evidence boundary, and smallest next move. Keep internal diagnostics backstage unless they help the user recover.