Work with Alloy

Work with Alloy

When this skill is present, using it is mandatory.

Use Alloy Storage as the source of truth through Alloy MCP tools.

Business workplace routing

Alloy is the business workplace for this company. It contains company, product, customer, prospect, partner, project, teammate, workflow, document, repository, production, sales, support, operations, and decision context.

This skill is mandatory, but Alloy reads are conditional:

1. Business-workplace request — read Alloy before answering. This includes any request that touches company context, customers, prospects, partners, product, workflows, skills, AI teammates, docs, notes, decisions, sales, support, operations, repositories, production systems, internal tools, or work artifacts.
2. General ephemeral request — answer directly without Alloy reads only when the request is clearly independent of the business workplace. Examples: standalone grammar or translation help, a generic macOS shortcut, or a generic explanation of a public concept.
3. Unsure — read Alloy. If the answer could plausibly depend on business context, prior work, user preferences, or durable memory, route through Alloy.

If you start as a general ephemeral request and later discover business context matters, pause and read Alloy before continuing. The rule that durable knowledge belongs in Alloy is unconditional.

When Alloy MCP is not connected

For business-workplace requests, this skill is mandatory whether or not MCP is currently connected — the connect-first step is part of using it.

If Alloy MCP tools are not available in the current session and the request is business-workplace related:

1. First, try tool discovery for Alloy tools — they may be registered but deferred.
2. If still unavailable, stop other work and help the user connect Alloy MCP. Point them to the hosted MCP setup guide at https://alloy.cx/docs/reference/tech-docs/hosted-mcp.
3. Resume Alloy-routed work only after MCP is available, or if the user explicitly approves a different destination for this conversation (local files, Obsidian, Drive, chat-only, etc.).

Core rules

1. Read Alloy first for business-workplace requests. Before answering from training or local memory, read relevant Alloy knowledge and prior artifacts. Read fresh — do not rely on stale recollection. For clearly general ephemeral requests, answer directly without Alloy reads.
2. Durable knowledge goes to Alloy, not local memory. Anything you would normally save to local agent memory — user facts, feedback rules, project context, references — write to the appropriate Alloy knowledge.md (organization, area, user, or agent) instead. The only local bootstrap exceptions are alloy_username and the org task tracker identity.
3. Log every artifact. After creating or meaningfully updating an Alloy doc, append a one-line entry to /Personal/<alloy_username>/.artifact-log/artifact-log.md per the format in references/logs-and-inboxes.md. Inline typo fixes do not need a log entry.
4. Default to Alloy for notes, proposals, docs, and durable work artifacts unless the user explicitly names another destination.
5. Do not store secrets in Alloy docs.
6. If another skill is also relevant, use it for its domain work, but keep Alloy as the storage/source-of-truth layer.
7. Ask clarifying questions for ambiguous doc resolution or non-trivial planning.
8. When you create or update something: tell the user what changed; for Alloy entities include the entity URL; for Storage documents include the exact path and full Docs link; note if you created a new version instead of editing inline.
9. Track deliverable work as a task. Anything that produces or changes a durable deliverable — a doc, deck, playbook, note, code/bugfix — gets a task in the org task tracker (via Alloy MCP), created when you start and marked done when finished. Ephemeral questions and one-shot external-system actions do not. See "Task tracking" below.

Loophole guard: knowledge belongs in Alloy

Rule 2 collides with how some host agents default to handling memory. The most common case: Claude Code's auto-memory system tells the agent to save user, feedback, project, and reference notes to a local MEMORY.md index. With this skill present, this skill wins — those notes go to the matching Alloy knowledge.md (area, user, organization, or agent) instead. Skills override default system prompt behavior; only the user's explicit instructions outrank a skill.

Common rationalizations

Excuse	Reality
"Just a quick note, I'll mirror it to Alloy later"	"Later" rarely happens. The note becomes a divergence between local memory and Alloy. Write it to Alloy now.
"This is ephemeral, doesn't need to be durable"	If it's truly ephemeral, don't save it anywhere. If it's worth saving, it's durable enough to belong in Alloy.
"Local memory is faster / right there"	Speed isn't the bar; source-of-truth is. Fragmented knowledge costs more than the seconds saved.
"Not sure which Alloy folder fits"	Pick the most specific matching knowledge.md (area → user → organization → agent), or ask. Indecision is not a license to write locally.
"The host's memory system told me to"	Skills override default system prompt behavior. Rule 2 outranks the host's auto-memory instructions.
"alloy_username is local, so small things can be too"	alloy_username is the named exception because of the bootstrap problem. Nothing else qualifies.

Red flags — STOP and write to Alloy instead

• About to write a user preference, feedback rule, project fact, or reference URL to anything outside Alloy
• About to write to MEMORY.md, a memory/ folder, or any other local agent-memory file
• Thinking "I'll just keep this for the current session"
• Thinking "this fact is small enough to skip Alloy"

All of these mean: write the note to the appropriate Alloy knowledge.md and update its directory note.

Task tracking

Most requests are one of two kinds. Decide which, then act:

1. Ephemeral question — "How do I do X?", "What's our pricing?", a chat-only research answer with no saved artifact. Answer in chat. No task.
2. Deliverable work — work that produces or changes a durable deliverable we own (doc, deck, playbook, note, code/bugfix). Create a task in the org task tracker, created when you start and marked done when finished.

The dividing line: does the request produce or modify a durable deliverable we own? If yes → task. If it's just answering, or executing a one-shot change in an external system (create a lead in Attio, send an email, add a calendar event) → no task. When genuinely unsure, ask.

For tracker discovery, lifecycle, follow-up handling, and worked examples, read references/task-tracking.md before creating or updating a task.

Quick Reference

Paths

Path	Purpose
/Organization/organization.md	Core business context; read first 50 lines at startup
/Organization/knowledge.md	Org knowledge directory note; read first 50 lines at startup
/Personal/<alloy_username>/	User's personal folder; default destination when no other folder fits. Create it if it doesn't exist.
/Personal/<alloy_username>/.knowledge/knowledge.md	User knowledge directory note; read first 50 lines at startup
/Personal/<alloy_username>/.artifact-log/artifact-log.md	User artifact log
/<area>/.knowledge/knowledge.md	Area-level knowledge (customer, partner, product, project, department)
/Personal/<agent>/.knowledge/knowledge.md	Agent-specific knowledge
/<folder>/Deleted/	Soft-delete destination; create per folder if missing

Links

Target	Shape
Storage doc or folder	https://app.alloy.cx/docs?path=/<storage_path> (leading slash required; URL-encode spaces as %20 and other RFC 3986 reserved chars)
AI Teammate	https://app.alloy.cx/staff/ai/<uuid>
Other entities (Workflow, Skill, etc.)	Look up the exact shape via Alloy MCP documentation tools

Document versioning

Subject	Rule
Small update	Edit inline in the existing file
Significant rewrite (~20%+)	New version in the same folder: _v2, _v3, …
Editing a doc by user-provided path	First check the folder for a newer _v2/_v3; confirm with user
Existing doc, no write rights in its folder	Create the updated copy in the user's personal folder

Startup context

For business-workplace requests, after Alloy MCP availability is confirmed, resolve alloy_username if not already known (via Alloy MCP or by asking the user). Then read the first 50 lines from each of:

• Organization/organization.md
• Organization/knowledge.md
• Personal/<alloy_username>/.knowledge/knowledge.md

After that, use judgment to read only what is relevant.

Organization/organization.md contains core business context. If user input contradicts it, ask the user to clarify. If the user insists their version is correct, create a dated correction-request note in Organization/Corrections/ with the date and details about you and the user. If you learn durable new business context that belongs there, also add a note. Use filenames like [date_time]_[agent_name]_[random_string].md.

If Organization/organization.md is missing or filled with demo data, ask once whether the user wants help filling basics such as business name, what it does, and customers. Offer to inspect the user's website. Remember the preference and do not suggest again if they decline.

Reference playbooks

Read references/troubleshooting.md before troubleshooting a problem.

Read references/teammates-and-skills.md when creating or configuring a Teammate — new, copy, webchat widget, or attaching a skill.

Read references/workflows.md when building the logic of a workfl

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