Secondbrain DB Edit

KB Edit Skill — Direct edits with end-of-turn reconciliation

In sbdb v2 each document is a pair: <id>.md (content + frontmatter) and a sibling <id>.yaml integrity sidecar. Both live under docs/<entity>/ and are committed to git. There is no data/ directory and no aggregate index.

Default mode: edit .md files directly

Use Edit, Write, and MultiEdit directly on any .md file under docs/. Treat it like any other markdown repo. A Stop hook reconciles sidecars at end of turn via sbdb doctor heal --since HEAD --i-meant-it, which:

• Recomputes virtual fields from the on-disk markdown.
• Re-signs sidecars in lockstep with the new content.
• Skips files outside any schema's docs_dir silently.

You don't run any "after-edit" command. You don't think about sidecars during the session. The hook fires when your turn ends and prints a one-line summary like:

[sbdb] post-fix heal: 2 re-signed, 1 sidecar(s) recreated

Creating a new document

Write to docs/notes/my-new-note.md:
---
id: my-new-note
created: 2026-05-10
status: active
---
# My note

Body here.

That's it. The Stop hook creates the <id>.yaml sidecar with fresh hashes when the turn ends.

If you need to discover the schema's required frontmatter fields first:

sbdb schema show -s notes --format json

Editing existing content

Just Edit the .md. Frontmatter changes, body changes, replacements — all handled. No special command.

Deleting a document

rm docs/notes/old-note.md docs/notes/old-note.yaml

Or use sbdb delete -s notes --id old-note --yes if you want a single command that handles both files.

When to use the sbdb CLI instead

The CLI is still the right tool when:

• You want JSON I/O — piping records between scripts:

  echo '{"id":"x","created":"2026-05-10","content":"# X"}' \
    | sbdb create -s notes --input -
  

• Bulk frontmatter ops — set a status across many docs:

  for id in $(sbdb query -s notes --filter status=draft --format json | jq -r '.data[].id'); do
    sbdb update -s notes --id "$id" --field status=published
  done
  

• You're committing mid-conversation and need pre-commit to pass immediately, not at end-of-turn.
• Block mode is active (see below).

Recovering from drift / tamper

If sbdb doctor check reports issues — usually because edits happened across multiple sessions or outside Claude Code — heal them:

sbdb doctor heal --i-meant-it           # heal everything dirty vs HEAD
sbdb doctor heal --i-meant-it --id foo  # heal one doc
sbdb doctor heal --i-meant-it --all     # heal everything in every schema
sbdb doctor heal --i-meant-it --since main  # heal everything dirty vs main

heal is sugar over fix --recompute + sign --force, with one safety property: --i-meant-it is your acknowledgement that any tampered files were edited intentionally. Without it, tamper exits 6 with an error message.

Block mode (opt-in, strict guard)

Some KBs need real-time tamper detection — compliance ADRs, audit logs, anything where "an unintentional edit slipped through" is a serious problem. Activate by adding to .sbdb.toml:

[claude]
mode = "block"

In block mode:

• Edit, Write, MultiEdit under docs/ are denied by a PreToolUse hook.
• A Stop hook actively blocks the agent from finishing with a dirty KB.
• All writes go through sbdb create / update / delete.

Block-mode workflow

# Create (JSON on stdin)
echo '{"id":"ADR-0005","number":5,"title":"New Architecture","status":"draft","created":"2026-05-10","content":"# ADR-0005\n\n## Context\n..."}' \
  | sbdb create -s adr --input -

# Update fields
sbdb update -s adr --id ADR-0005 --field status=accepted

# Replace body from a file (the only ergonomic way to edit multi-line markdown
# in block mode — write the new body to /tmp/body.md, then pass it in)
sbdb update -s adr --id ADR-0005 --content-file /tmp/body.md

# Combined body + frontmatter via JSON
echo '{"content":"# updated\n\n...","status":"accepted"}' \
  | sbdb update -s adr --id ADR-0005 --input -

# Delete
sbdb delete -s adr --id ADR-0005 --yes

The PreToolUse hook's deny message lists these flags whenever you trip it.

Untracked files (both modes)

Files outside any schema's docs_dir (docs/index.md, TEMPLATE.md, custom pages) aren't reconciled by the heal hook — heal --since skips them with outcome=skipped_no_schema. Manage them via:

sbdb untracked sign <path>          # sign an existing file
sbdb untracked sign-all docs/       # sign every untracked .md under docs/
sbdb untracked create <path> --content-file <body>

Rules

1. Don't edit <id>.yaml sidecars directly. They're integrity artefacts. The Stop hook regenerates them; touching them by hand only creates drift.
2. In post-fix mode (the default), don't run sbdb doctor check reflexively after every edit. The hook does it for you. Run it when something feels off, when reviewing a long session, or before merging a PR.
3. Use heal --i-meant-it for recovery, not sign --force --all. Heal recomputes virtuals before signing, which is the order that keeps record_sha consistent. Bare sign --force skips that step.
4. In block mode, never use Edit/Write under docs/ — the hook denies it and the user has explicitly opted into that posture.