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Aphorisms

Research

Aphorisms is an Agent Skill for research published in the danielmiessler/LifeOS repository on GitHub: a SKILL.md instruction file an AI agent can load to do this task.

Curated aphorism collection with CRUD — content-based matching, themed search, thinker research, DB maintenance. Quotes organized by author/theme/context/usage to prevent repetition. Four workflows: FindAphorism, AddAphorism, ResearchThinker, SearchAphorisms. Themes: Stoicism, Wisdom, Truth-seeking, Excellence, Resilience, Curiosity. USE WHEN aphorism, quote, find a quote, research thinker, add aphorism, quote for newsletter, what did X say about, quote bank. NOT FOR creative writing or social posts.

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How to use this skill

Bring this guide into your coding agent with a prompt tailored to the tool you use.

  1. Open your project in Codex.
  2. Copy and paste the prompt below.
  3. Review files and risks before approving any action.
Prompt to paste
Inspect the Agent Skill at https://github.com/danielmiessler/LifeOS/blob/HEAD/LifeOS/install/skills/Aphorisms/SKILL.md and all supporting files. Report provenance, permissions, scripts, dependencies, and security risks. Propose an exact installation into .agents/skills/aphorisms, but wait for my approval before writing files or running scripts.

Copying this prompt does not install or run the skill. Review third-party files before use.

Customization

Before executing, check for user customizations at: ~/.claude/LIFEOS/USER/CUSTOMIZATIONS/SKILLS/Aphorisms/

If this directory exists, load and apply any PREFERENCES.md, configurations, or resources found there. These override default behavior. If the directory does not exist, proceed with skill defaults.

🚨 MANDATORY: Voice Notification (REQUIRED BEFORE ANY ACTION)

You MUST send this notification BEFORE doing anything else when this skill is invoked.

  1. Send voice notification:

    curl -s -X POST http://localhost:31337/notify \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"message": "Running the WORKFLOWNAME workflow in the Aphorisms skill to ACTION"}' \
  > /dev/null 2>&1 &

  2. Output text notification:

    Running the **WorkflowName** workflow in the **Aphorisms** skill to ACTION...

This is not optional. Execute this curl command immediately upon skill invocation.

Aphorisms

Curated aphorism store with full CRUD. Deliverable: a ranked, non-repeated, attributed quote matched to the content's themes — with a one-line reason per option. Adding parses text + author, assigns themes, records source, and dedupes. Research pulls a thinker's TELOS-aligned quotes and files them by theme with sources.

Workflow Routing

When executing a workflow, output this notification directly:

Running the **WorkflowName** workflow in the **Aphorisms** skill to ACTION...
WorkflowTriggerFile
FindAphorismFind aphorism, quote for newsletter, match aphorism, suggest quote, aphorism recommendationWorkflows/FindAphorism.md
AddAphorismAdd quote, add aphorism, save quote, new aphorism, store quoteWorkflows/AddAphorism.md
ResearchThinkerResearch thinker, find quotes from, what did X say, thinker quotes onWorkflows/ResearchThinker.md
SearchAphorismsSearch aphorisms, find quotes on, quotes about, quotes matching, what aphorismsWorkflows/SearchAphorisms.md

Database

Location: ~/.claude/skills/Aphorisms/Database/aphorisms.md

Organized by author, theme, context, and usage history. Per-aphorism metadata: full quote text, author attribution, theme tags, context/background, source reference. Sections: Initial Collection, per-thinker sections, Theme Index, Newsletter Usage History.

Taxonomy (curated state)

Themes: Work Ethic & Excellence · Resilience & Strength · Learning & Education · Stoicism & Control · Risk & Action · Wisdom & Truth.

TELOS-aligned thinkers (wisdom, rationality, truth-seeking, human flourishing):

  • Christopher Hitchens — intellectual honesty, skepticism, follow the evidence
  • David Deutsch — optimistic epistemology, knowledge creation, explanations over predictions
  • Sam Harris — scientific rationality applied to ethics, reason, mindfulness
  • Baruch Spinoza — ethics from reason, freedom through understanding, acceptance
  • Richard Feynman — curiosity, doubt as a tool, clarity, scientific honesty

Gotchas

  • Search by theme, not exact text. The collection is organized by conceptual themes, not keyword matching.
  • Always include attribution and source when adding new aphorisms. Unattributed quotes are useless.
  • Duplicate detection: Check if the aphorism already exists before adding. Same idea, different wording, still counts as duplicate.

Execution Log

After completing any workflow, append a single JSONL entry:

echo '{"ts":"'$(date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ)'","skill":"Aphorisms","workflow":"WORKFLOW_USED","input":"8_WORD_SUMMARY","status":"ok|error","duration_s":SECONDS}' >> ~/.claude/LIFEOS/MEMORY/SKILLS/execution.jsonl

Replace WORKFLOW_USED with the workflow executed, 8_WORD_SUMMARY with a brief input description, and SECONDS with approximate wall-clock time. Log status: "error" if the workflow failed.