---
name: distill
description: Retroactively distill the logs of finished work — delete what the repo now answers, keep what code cannot say. Done work only; in-flight logs are never touched.
disable-model-invocation: true
argument-hint: "optional: a work slug, or nothing to sweep all undistilled done work"
allowed-tools: Bash(python3 ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/../genius-file/measure.py *)
---

# Distill

Tenacity distills a log at close-out. Work that finished before that rule existed, or closed without it, still carries everything: per-criterion evidence for tests that live in the tree, full bodies of contracts the final version replaced, an interview whose confirmed problem has lived in the snapshot ever since. This command runs the same move, later.

The concept: **close-out's one rule — does the repo answer this now? — applied where close-out never was, with the check close-out didn't need.** At close-out the verification is minutes old; here it may be months, so the rule is a live question per item:

- **Scope: done, has a log, undistilled.** Only works at `stage: done` with a `<slug>.log.md` whose first line is not `distilled`. In-flight logs are never touched, whatever the argument says. The scan is the instrument's — where a policy notice shows instead, run it before proposing:

  ```!
  python3 ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/../genius-file/measure.py distill
  ```
- **An item leaves only if the repo still answers it.** Per-criterion evidence goes where the test it names is still in the tree; a test the repo has since dropped makes that line possibly the last record standing, so it stays. Superseded contract bodies go (each keeps its one-line why); the interview's play-by-play goes where the snapshot carries the confirmed problem; a close-out review report shrinks to its stub where the snapshot carries its findings. What code can never answer always stays: decisions and kill-reasons, corrections and what overturned them, the user's words as they said them.
- **A pointed-at entry stays, whatever its category.** Before an entry leaves, check nothing still links to it — ⚠ **`.genius/BACKLOG.log.md` first**, because it is append-only and its pointers can never be repaired; then `.genius/DECIDED.md`, `.genius/BACKLOG.md`, and ⚠ **the work's own `CONTRACT.md`**, whose established layer names its source entry per block and is never drained, so its `[source]` links are still live months later — and per-criterion evidence is exactly what a block established by a slice points at.
- **Propose, then delete — never the other way.** Read-only until the user has seen, per log, what leaves and what stays (categories and counts); one confirmation covers the batch. A deletion the user hasn't seen is a silent one (`errata` skill).
- **Mark the pass.** The log's first line becomes `distilled retroactively, <date>`. Links that pointed at removed entries leave with them — a slice line keeps its check and its words, never a dead anchor.

Done when every targeted log is distilled, or named as skipped with its reason. Run it once per backlog of old work; after that, close-out keeps every new log distilled on its way out.