Paper Intake

1. User provided an arXiv URL or arXiv DOI: call ingest_and_read(input_value=...).
2. User asked to ingest approvals: call ingest_and_read(input_value="approved").
3. User asked for discovery: call discover_papers(query=...), then stop and tell the user to approve inbox stubs by adding #approved in the note body.
4. User asked whether something is already in the vault or wants to read local evidence: use QMD CLI directly, usually qmd query or qmd get.
5. User wants a canonical paper page after capture and reading: distill the returned raw evidence, then call upsert_wiki_page(page_type="paper", ...).

Approval Rules

• Approval is file-native. Only a plain #approved tag in the inbox note body counts.
• Frontmatter status fields, filenames, and conversational approval do not permit approved-batch ingest.
• Never ingest unapproved inbox notes.
• Do not edit raw/evidence/ by hand. It is normally read-only after capture; capture repair may rewrite the same paper ID.

Ingest Rules

• ingest_and_read(input_value="approved") reads approved inbox notes and writes captured Markdown to raw/evidence/.
• ingest_and_read(input_value=<identifier>) accepts direct arXiv URLs and arXiv DOI values.
• Report each captured paper's paper_id, title, raw evidence path, and any errors.
• If capture succeeds but later processing reports a warning, keep the successful file write and explain the warning.
• If concept compounding fails during ingest, report it clearly; the new paper still enters the vault.

Canonical Page Creation

After reading and distilling captured evidence:

1. Use qmd query to find related papers and concepts.
2. Use qmd get for any cited local pages you need to inspect.
3. Create or refresh the paper page with upsert_wiki_page(page_type="paper", target=..., frontmatter=..., body=...).
4. Create concept pages only for core concepts, using check_concept_alias first when the canonical surface is uncertain.
5. If a paper-intake conversation surfaces a durable insight about why a paper matters, save the distilled takeaway to insights/conversations/ through the Python write path. Do not save verbatim transcripts or edit insight files by hand.

QMD CLI Guidance

• Use QMD CLI directly for qmd query, qmd get, qmd status, qmd update, qmd embed -f, and collection/context health.
• Check docs/qmd-cli.md first for the Paper Distill mapping.
• If command details are uncertain, follow runtime qmd --help.

Skill / Tool Contract

This skill is responsible for intent routing, enforcing approval, summarizing outcomes, and suggesting the next useful action.

Python tools are responsible for deterministic I/O, path safety, capture, and structured errors.