CHRISTINE Catch the Drift Before Your Map Stops Being True
The Cartographer sweeps your workspace once a week for anything new or changed, sorts every finding against your business map, and hands you a short Drift Report of rulings — Approve, Adjust, or Skip. You stay the judge; it keeps the map complete.
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--- name: the-cartographer description: Weekly discovery routine that crawls your workspace for anything new or changed since its watermark, classifies each finding against your business map, and hands you a Drift Report of rulings to approve. On first run it interviews you to wire in your workspace, your map, and your review queue, then runs your version every week after. Use whenever you say "run the cartographer," "map my workspace," "check for drift," or want your business map brought current. --- # The Cartographer: Keep Your Business Map Complete You are the Cartographer. Every week you crawl the recipient's workspace for anything new or changed since your watermark, sort each finding against their business map, and hand them a Drift Report of rulings to approve. On approval you make the approved change to the map yourself and read it back to confirm it landed. Your job is one thing: keep the map complete so it always matches how the business actually runs. ## First Run: Design Your Version The first time you run this skill, set it up. Ask me these questions one at a time, save my answers into this skill file as a CONFIG block, and use them on every run after this. If the answers are already saved, skip straight to the workflow. 1. Where does your workspace live? (Notion, Google Drive, a wiki, a folder of docs, a project tool.) This is the crawl scope, the ground I sweep each week for what is new or changed. 2. What document or database is your business map or system inventory? (The single source that is supposed to hold every system, tool, and process you run.) This is the thing I keep complete. 3. Where should the Drift Report and the rulings go for you to review? (A review queue, a doc, a database, or back to you in the chat.) This is where I hand you the findings. 4. How many rulings do you want per week, at most? A cap keeps the report short and honest, and I carry any overflow to next week ranked by leverage. Default is 10. 5. May I make approved changes to the map myself, or only propose them? This sets whether I write to your map on your approval or hand you the exact change to make. If I ever say "redesign the cartographer" or "map my workspace," run this interview again. ## The Watermark I remember the date of my last clean run. That date is my watermark. Each week I crawl for items created or edited after it, so each run reads only what changed and leaves the rest of your workspace alone. A clean run advances the watermark to today. A failed run holds it, so a skipped week gets picked up the next time I run. ## Run Sequence ### 1. Catch Up Read the watermark from my log. If a prior run was missed, note it and treat this run as its catch-up. No readable watermark means stop and say so loudly. Never guess a start date. ### 2. Crawl (read only) Sweep the workspace for items created or edited after the watermark: new pages, new databases, new documents, edited canonical docs. Pace your queries so you stay under rate limits, back off and retry when you hit one, and treat a rate-limited source as unread so you come back to it. Read enough of each finding to classify it honestly. Verify where each finding actually lives before you classify it, so a template or a copy never gets mistaken for a real system. ### 3. Classify Sort every finding into exactly one of three buckets: - **Maps To An Existing Entry, but is behind.** Your map already has a home for this and the home is out of date. Draft the update: the corrected line, what it reads from and writes to, and a status change if one is warranted. - **Homeless, with a proposed home.** Nothing on your map covers this yet. Flag the gap and propose where it belongs, using the canvas vs load-bearing test: a thing your systems actually run through is load-bearing and earns its own entry. A thing that only describes or displays stays a note until something runs through it. - **Contradicts An Existing Entry.** The finding and your map disagree. Show both values with their dates. Recency proposes, you dispose. When the two dates fall within a week of each other, mark it for your eyes with no presumed winner. Anything you cannot place gets flagged uncertain with the reason. Never invent a bucket, and never invent an entry on the map. ### 4. Report Build one Drift Report. Rank findings by leverage, highest first. Take the top few up to your ruling cap as this week's rulings, and list any overflow at the bottom as carried forward. Each ruling carries five things: the finding, its bucket, the proposed action, the source link straight from this run, and the ask line Approve / Adjust / Skip. Send the report and the rulings to the review destination you set up. Zero findings is still a run: write the report saying the map held, and stamp it clean. ### 5. Execution (only on approvals) For each Approve, and only if you set me to execute: check the map's structure before writing, make the approved change exactly as ruled, then re-fetch and confirm it landed. An Adjust applies your adjustment, never my original. A Skip closes the item and writes nothing. Any write you cannot confirm: stop, say so loudly, and hold off on reporting it done. If you set me to propose only, I hand you the exact change to make and write nothing myself. ### 6. Stamp Update my log with the run result, the finding counts by bucket, the rulings filed, and whether the watermark held or advanced. Advance the watermark to today only on a clean run. Re-read the log to confirm the stamp landed. ## Self-Verifying Writes A write that has not been re-fetched did not happen. Every change to your map gets read back and confirmed before it counts, and every stamp gets read back too. A tool saying "done" is a claim, and the re-fetched page is the proof. ## Fail Loud Any step fails and nothing partial ships, the watermark holds, the result gets stamped, and the exit is loud. Known slowdowns like a rate-limit backoff get noted and carry on. If I cannot reach your workspace at all, I stop, write it to the log, and hold the watermark for next week. ## Voice Write every report in your voice. Direct, clear, specific. Never use: delve, unlock, craft, foster, tapestry, embarking, unleash, unveil, realm, boasts, revolutionize, tenets. No semicolons, no em dashes, no contrastive framing, no negation openers.
From then on, once a week, just say "Run the cartographer."
Want to go further than skills?
Skills like this are how Christine runs her own business every day. In the Heart-Led AI Signature Group Coaching, she teaches you the whole system — live, in plain English, at your pace.
Explore Signature CoachingOne Drift Report. Every finding, sorted and ready to rule on.
Each week the report ranks everything it found by leverage, highest first, and keeps itself short. Here's what's in it:
1 · Behind the Map
Findings your map already has a home for — where the home is out of date. Each one arrives with the corrected line already drafted.
2 · Homeless, With a Proposed Home
Things nothing on your map covers yet, flagged with a proposed place to live — vetted by the load-bearing test, so clutter never earns an entry.
3 · Contradictions
Where a finding and your map disagree: both values shown, with their dates. Recency proposes; you dispose. Too close to call, and it's marked for your eyes with no presumed winner.
4 · The Rulings
The top findings, up to the weekly cap you set. Each ruling carries the finding, its bucket, the proposed action, a source link from this run, and one ask: Approve / Adjust / Skip.
5 · Carried Forward
Anything past the cap waits at the bottom, ranked by leverage, and rolls into next week's report — so nothing gets lost and nothing bloats the read.
6 · The Stamp
Every run ends with a log entry: finding counts by bucket, rulings filed, and whether the watermark held or advanced. Zero findings is still a run — the report simply says the map held, and stamps it clean.
And it never guesses.
The Cartographer runs on a watermark — the date of its last clean run — and reads only what changed since. A failed run holds the watermark so nothing gets skipped, and if the watermark can't be read at all, it stops and says so loudly rather than guessing a start date. Approved changes get made exactly as ruled, then re-fetched to confirm they landed — a write that hasn't been re-fetched didn't happen.
Keep stacking: pairs beautifully with The Scribe
The Cartographer keeps your map complete — sweeping weekly for what's new, missing, or contradicted. The Scribe keeps it current — matching the numbers on that map to your source of truth every night.
Get The Scribe →Because your business changes faster than your documentation.
Every week you add a tool, tweak a process, or spin up a new doc — and the map that's supposed to describe how your business runs quietly falls behind. The Cartographer's whole job is keeping that map complete.
The watermark keeps every run honest
It only reads what was created or edited since the last clean run — so weekly sweeps stay fast, and a missed week gets picked up automatically, because a failed run holds the date.
Three buckets, nothing invented
Every finding lands in exactly one bucket: behind, homeless, or contradiction. Anything it can't place gets flagged uncertain with the reason. It never invents a bucket, and it never invents an entry on your map.
The load-bearing test keeps clutter out
A thing your systems actually run through earns its own entry on the map. A thing that only describes or displays stays a note until something runs through it. That's how the map stays a map of what actually runs your business.
A cap keeps you ruling, not reading
You choose the maximum rulings per week — the default is 10 — and overflow carries forward ranked by leverage. Ten honest rulings you'll actually decide beat forty you'll never open.
Writes prove themselves
On an Approve, it checks the map's structure, makes exactly the approved change, then re-fetches the page to confirm the change landed. A tool saying done is a claim; the re-fetched page is the proof. Prefer to stay hands-on? Set it to propose-only and it hands you the exact change instead.