Orion vault — clean initial history

Knowledge vault (Orion/PARA) migrated from the pre-Orion 484vault on
2026-10-01. Deliberately orphaned: prior history contained a plaintext
password and stays local-only on branch archive/pre-boilerplate-history.
Secrets and live Hermes state are gitignored.

2. Areas/Home Personal/knowledge/hermes/hermes-memory/RESTORE-HERMES.md

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+# Restoring Hermes from this vault (computer-dies procedure)
+
+> **Path note (2026-10-01 Orion reorg):** `04-SYSTEMS/hermes-memory/`, `04-SYSTEMS/hermes-config.yaml` and `04-SYSTEMS/hermes-automation/` below now live under `2. Areas/Home Personal/knowledge/hermes/` (this file's own directory). Daily knowledge-routing now targets the Orion areas (`2. Areas/*/knowledge/`, `3. Resources/Research/`, `4. Decisions/`).
+
+If a brand-new Hermes instance is installed on a new machine, point it at this vault and it can rebuild itself from these pieces:
+
+## What's here
+- `03-SKILLS/hermes-skills/` — full copy of `~/.hermes/skills/` (learned procedures + scripts/templates/references).
+- `03-SKILLS/Knowledge Vault Skills Index.md` — machine-generated catalog of every skill (name, trigger description, path). Do not hand-edit; rebuilt hourly.
+- `04-SYSTEMS/hermes-memory/mnemosyne-export.json` — full Mnemosyne export (working memories, annotations, canonical facts). Restorable with the `mnemosyne_import` tool (`input_path` mode).
+- `04-SYSTEMS/hermes-memory/mnemosyne.db` — hourly WAL-safe live copy of the Mnemosyne DB (superset of the JSON export; use this if the JSON is older).
+- `04-SYSTEMS/hermes-memory/MEMORY.md` + `USER.md` — legacy Hermes memory + user profile.
+- `04-SYSTEMS/hermes-config.yaml` — Hermes config. Contains NO literal secrets (API keys are `${ENV_VAR}` references); the env vars themselves live in `~/.hermes/.env` which is deliberately NOT copied here.
+- `04-SYSTEMS/hermes-automation/` — `scripts/` (vault-sync.sh, skills-index.py, release-watch) and `cron-jobs.json` (all scheduled job definitions, so automation can be recreated without re-authoring prompts).
+
+## Restore steps for the new instance
+1. `cp -a "<vault>/03-SKILLS/hermes-skills/." ~/.hermes/skills/`
+2. Ask the agent to run `mnemosyne_import` with `input_path` = this vault's `04-SYSTEMS/hermes-memory/mnemosyne-export.json` (idempotent; skips duplicates).
+3. `cp` the two memory files into `~/.hermes/memories/`.
+4. Diff `hermes-config.yaml` against the new default config rather than blind-copying (schema may have changed).
+5. Restore automation: `cp -a "<vault>/04-SYSTEMS/hermes-automation/scripts/." ~/.hermes/scripts/`, then recreate the cron jobs from `cron-jobs.json` (names, schedules, and full prompts are in there).
+6. Re-supply secrets: set the env vars referenced in config (e.g. `HERMES_CUSTOM_*_API_KEY`) in `~/.hermes/.env`. These are NOT in the vault by design.
+
+## Automatic sync (running since 2026-09-11)
+- **Hourly** (cron `vault-sync-mechanical`, script `~/.hermes/scripts/vault-sync.sh`): mirrors skills dir, rebuilds the skills index, copies automation scripts + cron job definitions, memory .md files, config, and a WAL-safe live copy of the Mnemosyne DB into this vault. Silent unless it errors.
+- **Daily 11pm** (cron `vault-knowledge-routing`): agent reviews new memories/skills since `.last-sync` and routes them to `02-WORKFLOWS/`, `04-SYSTEMS/`, `05-KNOWLEDGE/`, `06-DECISIONS/`, `07-TROUBLESHOOTING/` as proper notes.
+- `.last-sync` in this dir marks the last successful hourly sync.
+
+## Known limits
+- Secrets (`~/.hermes/.env`) are intentionally NOT in the vault — a new machine needs them re-entered.
+- `~/.hermes/sessions/` (raw chat transcripts, ~360K) is not backed up; memory + skills are the durable layer. Say the word if you want transcripts mirrored too.
+
+Last verified: 2026-09-13 (by Hermes, full audit + gap fixes).