Provenance

Provenance Skill

Trace knowledge artifact lineage to sources.

Execution Steps

Given /provenance <artifact>:

Step 1: Read the Artifact

Tool: Read
Parameters:
  file_path: <artifact-path>

Look for provenance metadata:

• Source references
• Session IDs
• Dates
• Related artifacts

Step 2: Trace Source Chain

# Check for source metadata in the file
grep -i "source\|session\|from\|extracted" <artifact-path>

# Search for related transcripts
ao forge search "<artifact-name>" 2>/dev/null

Step 3: Build Lineage Chain

Transcript (source of truth)
    ↓
Forge extraction (candidate)
    ↓
Human review (promotion)
    ↓
Pattern recognition (tier-up)
    ↓
Skill creation (automation)

Step 4: Write Provenance Report

# Provenance: <artifact-name>

## Current State
- **Tier:** <0-3>
- **Created:** <date>
- **Citations:** <count>

## Source Chain
1. **Origin:** <transcript or session>
   - Line/context: <where extracted>
   - Extracted: <date>

2. **Promoted:** <tier change>
   - Reason: <why promoted>
   - Date: <when>

## Related Artifacts
- <related artifact 1>
- <related artifact 2>

Step 5: Report to User

Tell the user:

1. Artifact lineage
2. Original source
3. Promotion history
4. Related artifacts

Finding Orphans

/provenance --orphans

Find artifacts without source tracking:

# Files without "Source:" or "Session:" metadata
for f in .agents/learnings/*.md; do
  grep -L "Source\|Session" "$f" 2>/dev/null
done

Finding Stale Artifacts

/provenance --stale

Find artifacts where source may have changed:

# Artifacts older than their sources
find .agents/ -name "*.md" -mtime +30 2>/dev/null

Key Rules

• Every insight has a source - trace it
• Track promotions - know why tier changed
• Find orphans - clean up untracked knowledge
• Maintain lineage - provenance enables trust