Internal page. Set to No Index in super.so. This is the AI scratchpad, not reader content.

What this is

The persistent planning surface for Claude (or any other agent) working on wiki.paulmaxwell.dev. The model's context window resets every session; this page does not. Read it before planning. Update it before declaring work done. Treat Notion as the source of truth, not the chat transcript.

This page complements three other internal docs:

• Directions for Claude (Wiki Operations Manual) — how to write (conventions, slugs, templates, CTA rules, DB IDs).
• Quality Standards for Claude — the bar (reference voice, banned filler, word bands, self-review checklist).
• Wiki Changelog — what has been done, dated and append-only.

This page captures what is in flight, what is next, and what decisions are open.

Session loop

Every session should follow the same loop:

1. Read. Open this page, the Operations Manual, the Quality Standards, and the latest Changelog entry. Reading is non-negotiable; the bar drifts when sessions improvise.
2. Reconcile. Verify the Current state counts below against the live databases. Update if drifted.
3. Pick. Choose work from the Active threads or Outline queue below. If picking outside the queue, log the reason in Decision log.
4. Plan. Use the Planning template below for any non-trivial page or batch.
5. Write. Draft against the templates in the Operations Manual at the bar in the Quality Standards.
6. QA. Walk the Quality Standards self-review checklist before marking anything In Review.
7. Log. Append an entry to the Changelog. Update Active threads, Outline queue, and Decision log on this page.

Current state

Last verified: 2026-05-31. Counts carried forward from prior session's report; reverify against live DBs at session start.

Active threads

The currently in-flight programs of work. When a thread closes, move it to the Changelog as a session entry.

Thread A — Quality bar retroactive sweep

Status. Phase 1 done (10 pages cleaned of substantial). Phase 2 pending: extend the sweep to the other banned filler modifiers across all already-published pages.

Next action. Pattern-replace significantly, very, really, clearly, obviously, in many ways across the Traditions and Figures databases. Same six-pattern playbook (leading, mid-sentence, with-article variants).

Open question for Paul. Should the sweep be staged DB-by-DB (Traditions first, then Figures, then Concepts) or page-by-page in order of traffic?

Thread B — Publications expansion

Status. Last batch (2026-05-31) added six secondary-depth Publications. Next batch identified.

Candidate next batch.

1. Principia Mathematica (Whitehead + Russell, 1910–13) — canonical depth.
2. Begriffsschrift (Frege, 1879) — canonical depth.
3. Der logische Aufbau der Welt (Carnap, 1928) — secondary depth.
4. Institutes of the Christian Religion (Calvin, 1559 final ed.) — Reformation canonical depth.
5. Loci Communes (Melanchthon, 1521) — Reformation secondary depth.
6. Diatribe on Free Will (Erasmus, 1524) + Bondage of the Will (Luther, 1525) — paired secondary-depth entries.

Open question for Paul. Six in one batch matches the cadence of the last session; confirm before writing.

Thread C — Pillar Concept buildout

Status. Natural Theology (parent) and Theodicy drafted 2026-05-31 in Draft status; both pending Paul's review. The natural-theology cluster is now five pages: Ontological Argument, Cosmological Argument, Problem of Evil, Natural Theology, Theodicy.

Candidate next pages (in priority order).

1. Principle of Sufficient Reason — leans on Leibniz, used by the Cosmological Argument and Theodicy pages; needs its own Pillar entry to stop being a dangling forward-reference.
2. Argument from Design — Paley, the Hume critique, Darwin, contemporary fine-tuning revival; closes the classical-arguments triad.
3. Divine Hiddenness — Schellenberg's contemporary argument; pairs naturally with Problem of Evil and rounds out the atheistic side.

Resolved this session. Chose Thread C over Thread B for cluster-completion. Thread B (Publications expansion) remains queued for the next session unless circumstances change.

Thread D — Cross-link health audit

Status. Not started. Operations Manual requires every page to have ≥3 cross-DB links; some older pages predate that rule.

Next action. Query each DB for pages with < 3 outbound relations. Generate a punch list of pages to repair.

Open question for Paul. Worth scheduling, or only do as found during writing?

Outline queue

Pages drafted at outline depth, waiting to be written. Outlines belong here so the next session can pick one up cold without re-thinking the structure. Use the Planning template below to add new entries.

(Empty. Populate as outlines are produced.)

Planning template

Use this skeleton for any non-trivial page before writing prose. Fill it in this page (under Outline queue) so the work can be paused and resumed without context loss.

Page-type templates (quick reference)

Full templates live in the Operations Manual. Quick-reference scaffolds:

Pillar Concept (2,000–3,500 words): Introduction → The problem it answers → Core claim → History in one paragraph → 3–5 H2 expansions → Common confusions → What it isn't → Live debates → Contemporary engagement → Further reading.

Satellite Concept (1,200–1,800 words): Definition → Origin → Core thesis → 1 expansion → Pointer to parent Pillar → Further reading.

Figure (2,500–3,500 words): Introduction → Life → The problem he/she worked on → 3–5 contributions → Key works → Influences and influenced → Reception → Continuing engagement → Further reading.

Publication (secondary 1,800–2,500; canonical 2,500–3,500): Introduction → Composition and publication → Central doctrines → Reception → Place in the wiki → Further reading.

Tradition (3,000–4,500 words): Introduction → Founding moment → Core doctrines → Major figures → Major texts → Internal tensions and rival schools → Legacy → Internal debates → Texts and transmission.

QA checklist (lifted from Quality Standards)

Walk before marking any page In Review. Full version with rationale lives in Quality Standards.

1. Substantial check — search for substantial / substantially; remove or replace each.
2. Filler check — same for significant, significantly, very, really, clearly, obviously, in many ways.
3. Reader-addressing check — no second person, no For X: tags.
4. Specificity check — claims about influence grounded in named people; dates present; critical editions named.
5. Scholarship check — contemporary engagement section names ≥3 living scholars and ≥1 journal.
6. Crosslink check — first mention of every wiki entity links; ≥3 relations across DBs.
7. Length check — meets the word band for its tier.
8. Voice check — opening paragraph reads like Britannica / SEP / a Cambridge Companion. If it reads like marketing, rewrite.
9. Further reading check — 4–7 annotated internal links at the end.
10. Closing italic check — one-line italic summary under the final rule.

Decision log

Resolved decisions worth carrying forward. Add new decisions at the top.

• 2026-05-31 (afternoon). When two threads of equal merit compete, prefer the one that completes an existing cluster over the one that opens a new area. Closing clusters maximizes cross-link density and SEO compounding.
• 2026-05-31 (afternoon). Pillar field for theological-philosophical reference pages is Philosophy + Deconversion. Career is reserved for pages with direct relevance to operator / builder decision-making.
• 2026-05-31. Working memory lives in Notion, not in the model's context. Every session reads this page first.
• 2026-05-31. Reference-not-edification voice is enforced across all pages, retroactively as well as for new pages.
• 2026-05-31. Section headings are descriptive (Introduction, Founding moment, Core doctrines) — never Hook or Why it matters in body content.
• 2026-05-29. Word-count bands are structural minimums per tier, not soft targets. Under-length pages fail QA.
• 2026-05-29. Pillar pages require named living scholars and named critical editions or journals in contemporary engagement.
• 2026-05-25. Slugs are permanent on publish. No renames; new pages + redirects only.
• 2026-05-25. Year is Number (negative integers for BCE). Date is Date type, populated only for modern entries with precise calendar dates. Year Notes is free text for circa, fl., etc.

Open questions for Paul

Waiting on Paul's call. Resolve and move to Decision log when answered.

1. Publications vs. Pillar Concepts next? Resolved 2026-05-31 (afternoon): chose Pillar Concepts to close the natural-theology cluster. Thread B is next unless circumstances change.
2. Sweep cadence. Stage the filler-modifier sweep DB-by-DB or page-by-page in traffic order? (Thread A.)
3. Cross-link audit. Schedule as its own thread, or only repair as found during writing? (Thread D.)
4. Stories pillar. No Stories have been written yet. Hold until the reference spine is fuller, or seed one early as a model?

This page is the AI's persistent memory for the wiki. Every session: read it, update it, leave it cleaner than you found it.

Coverage audit (2026-05-31)

Audit conducted before the planned pivot to quantitative reasoning / math / probability / statistics / data viz / data science / psychology. Question Paul asked: "what is required to achieve decent coverage across the history of philosophy?" This section is the answer and the program of work.

Coverage by area

Strong (publication-grade depth or near it). Pre-Socratic figures (Thales, Anaximander, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Democritus); Classical (Plato, Aristotle, Cicero); Hellenistic Stoics + Skepticism + Cynicism (Zeno, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Pyrrho, Diogenes of Sinope); Late Antique (Plotinus, Proclus, Boethius, Augustine); Scholastic (Anselm, Aquinas, Scotus, Ockham, Bonaventure); Islamic (Averroes, Avicenna); Rationalism partial (Descartes, Leibniz); Empiricism partial (Locke, Hume); German Idealism (Kant, Hegel); 19th c. (Schopenhauer, Marx, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard); Phenomenology (Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty); Existentialism (Sartre, Beauvoir, Camus); Pragmatism (Peirce, James, Dewey); Analytic (Frege, Russell, Moore, Wittgenstein, Quine, Carnap, Kripke); Critical Theory (Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, Benjamin); Continental late 20th partial (Derrida).

Gaps. Missing or dangling listed in Thread E below.

Thread E — Coverage closure (minimum viable for "decent coverage")

Status. New thread opened 2026-05-31 (afternoon). Goal: close the holes the audit identified before pivoting to quantitative reasoning. Estimated ~34 pages at Quality Standards. At ~2 pages per session, ~17 sessions of execution. Sequenced below by leverage.

E.1 — Tradition pages (highest leverage; each orphans multiple existing figures)

1. Pre-Socratic Done 2026-05-31 (Draft). Closes Thales, Anaximander, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Democritus.
2. Skepticism — schema option; Pyrrho already in Figures and dangles. Next in queue.
3. Cynicism — schema option; Diogenes of Sinope already in Figures and dangles.
4. Epicureanism — schema option with no page; pairs with new Epicurus Figure.
5. Continental Philosophy — schema option; Derrida (and Foucault, Habermas, Levinas when added) needs a tradition home.
6. Postmodernism — schema option; pairs with Derrida and other late-20th-century work.

E.2 — Critical missing Figures

Foundational figures whose absence breaks coherence of existing pages.

1. Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) — early modern political philosophy; Leviathan.
2. Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) — rationalist substance monism; the Substance Monism Concept page already exists and dangles without him.
3. George Berkeley (1685–1753) — completes the British empiricist triad (Locke / Berkeley / Hume).
4. John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) — Utilitarianism Tradition exists; the founder is missing.
5. Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) — Utilitarianism founder paired with Mill.
6. Epicurus (341–270 BCE) — anchors Epicureanism Tradition.
7. Lucretius (c. 99–c. 55 BCE) — De Rerum Natura; principal Epicurean transmission.
8. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) — Enlightenment political philosophy; Social Contract.
9. Michel Foucault (1926–1984) — French theory; power/knowledge, genealogy.
10. Jürgen Habermas (1929– ) — Frankfurt School successor; communicative action.
11. John Rawls (1921–2002) — A Theory of Justice Publication exists; Figure missing.
12. Karl Popper (1902–1994) — falsifiability; philosophy of science.
13. Thomas Kuhn (1922–1996) — paradigm shifts; Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

Second-tier figures to add after the above: Luther, Calvin, Erasmus (Reformation cluster); Maimonides (medieval Jewish); Hannah Arendt (political theory); Heraclitus, Empedocles, Zeno of Elea (Pre-Socratic depth); Mill's father James Mill (only if relevant); Davidson, Putnam, Sellars, Anscombe, Foot, Williams (analytic depth).

E.3 — Critical missing Publications

Canonical works currently absent.

1. Meditations on First Philosophy (Descartes, 1641)
2. Ethics (Spinoza, 1677)
3. Leviathan (Hobbes, 1651)
4. Critique of Pure Reason (Kant, 1781) — verify; may already exist
5. Critique of Practical Reason (Kant, 1788)
6. Phenomenology of Spirit (Hegel, 1807)
7. Being and Time (Heidegger, 1927)
8. Being and Nothingness (Sartre, 1943)
9. On Liberty (Mill, 1859)
10. The Social Contract (Rousseau, 1762)
11. Confessions (Augustine, 397–400)
12. City of God (Augustine, 413–426)
13. Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Kuhn, 1962)
14. Logic of Scientific Discovery (Popper, 1934/1959)
15. Genealogy of Morals (Nietzsche, 1887)
16. Beyond Good and Evil (Nietzsche, 1886)
17. Proslogion (Anselm, 1077–78)
18. De Rerum Natura (Lucretius, c. 55 BCE)
19. Meditations (Marcus Aurelius, c. 170–180)
20. Symposium / Phaedo / Theaetetus (Plato; batch)

E.4 — Critical missing Pillar Concepts

The existing pages lean on these and they should not be forward-references.

1. Eudaimonia — Ops Manual literally uses it as the worked-example template. Build first.
2. Cogito — Descartes' Meditations hinges on it.
3. Mind-Body Problem — root of philosophy of mind.
4. Free Will (and determinism) — foundational across ethics, theology, metaphysics.
5. Falsifiability — Popperian; needed for the philosophy-of-science cluster.
6. Justice — Rawls-related; pillar of political philosophy.
7. Hylomorphism — Aristotelian matter/form; referenced often.
8. Problem of Universals — medieval and contemporary nominalism debate.

Plus the three already queued in Thread C: Principle of Sufficient Reason, Argument from Design, Divine Hiddenness.

E.5 — Global-scope question (open for Paul)

The wiki currently has zero non-Western coverage. If global scope is a goal of "decent coverage," add at minimum: Confucius, Laozi, the Buddha (Siddhārtha Gautama), Nagarjuna. Plus Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhist Philosophy as Traditions (which would require adding them to the Tradition select option list — schema change, requires Paul's approval per Ops Manual).

If global scope is not a goal of this wiki, log that decision here and move on without these pages.

Recommended sequencing through Thread E

Priority ordering, by descending leverage:

1. Pre-Socratic Tradition (closes 5 dangling figures in one page).
2. Skepticism Tradition + Cynicism Tradition (closes 2 dangling figures each).
3. Epicureanism Tradition + Epicurus + Lucretius + De Rerum Natura (full cluster in one batch).
4. Spinoza Figure + Ethics (Spinoza) Publication (closes the Substance Monism dangling reference).
5. Hobbes Figure + Leviathan Publication (early modern political spine).
6. Mill + On Liberty + Bentham (closes Utilitarianism cluster).
7. Continental + Postmodernism Traditions; then Foucault, Habermas, Rawls (political-continental spine).
8. Popper + Kuhn + Falsifiability + Structure of Scientific Revolutions (philosophy-of-science cluster).
9. Eudaimonia + Cogito + Mind-Body Problem + Free Will + Justice (pillar-concept fills).
10. Remaining Publication catch-up (Augustine's Confessions and City of God, Kant's Critiques, Hegel's Phenomenology, Heidegger's Being and Time, etc.).

When this thread closes, the wiki has Western-canonical decent coverage and the math/quant pivot can begin without leaving foundational holes.

Audit conducted 2026-05-31 by the AI session that scaffolded Working Memory. Thread E is the program for closing the gaps before the quantitative-reasoning pivot.

Thread F — AEO / GEO / llms.txt / robots.txt infrastructure

Opened 2026-05-31 in response to Paul's three messages on 101-level foundationals, AEO/GEO competition with Wikipedia + SEP, and the super.so + llms.txt / robots.txt implementation problem.

What's done

1. 101-level foundational requirement added to Quality Standards (new section). All future pages must define-before-use, link prerequisites explicitly, make the first paragraph standalone, and assume no canonical familiarity.n2. AEO / GEO / LLM-ingestion requirements added to Quality Standards (new section). Lead with definition, first paragraph as micro-article, plain section headings in canonical order, primary-source in-line citation, proper-noun anchoring, lists for grouped items.n3. llms.txt source page created under the wiki hub at 🤖 llms.txt (source). Content follows the llms.txt convention proposed by Jeremy Howard: H1 site name, blockquote summary, H2 sections with bullet-list links by category. Covers Traditions (17), key Figures (38), Pillar Concepts (~25), canonical Publications (32), plus About / Blog / Optional. To be updated whenever a new page is promoted to Published.nn## What Paul needs to do in super.so (outside Notion)nnThese steps live outside Notion and can't be executed by the AI session. Walk them after each llms.txt update or at site setup.nnTo serve /llms.txt:nn1. In Notion, set the 🤖 llms.txt (source) page to public-share with link.n2. Note the page's super.so-rendered URL (likely https://wiki.paulmaxwell.dev/llms-txt-source or similar, depending on slug). Verify it's accessible.n3. In the super.so dashboard → Site Settings → Custom Routes (or URL Rewrites / Redirects), add a rewrite from /llms.txt to the rendered Notion page URL. If super.so doesn't support arbitrary URL rewrites, configure the page slug as llms.txt in the Notion source row's Slug field (this is the exception to the slug-rules-are-lowercase-hyphenated convention; flag in the Ops Manual).n4. Verify by curling https://wiki.paulmaxwell.dev/llms.txt. The response should be the page's rendered markdown.n5. Confirm the page is set to No Index in super.so so the human-facing route does not compete with the .txt endpoint in search.nnTo configure robots.txt-equivalent behavior:nnsuper.so does not expose a root-level robots.txt. Use code injection for the equivalent:nn1. super.so dashboard → Site Settings → Code Injection → <head> tag.n2. Add a <meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index,follow\"> declaration for the site as a whole.n3. For internal pages that should NOT be indexed (this Working Memory page, Quality Standards, Operations Manual, Changelog, llms.txt source), set their Notion Status to a value that super.so excludes from publish or mark them individually with No Index in the page's super.so settings.n4. The internal-page status convention from the Ops Manual already handles this for Drafts. The internal admin pages should additionally be flagged No Index even if they end up Published.nnTo configure AI-crawler-specific rules:nnA full robots.txt style file isn't available, but per the recent llms.txt spec discussion, many AI crawlers honor the X-Robots-Tag HTTP header and standard meta tags. In super.so's <head> injection, optionally add directives such as:nn\n<meta name=\"GPTBot\" content=\"index,follow\">\n<meta name=\"ClaudeBot\" content=\"index,follow\">\n<meta name=\"PerplexityBot\" content=\"index,follow\">\nnnOr, to block specific bots, use noindex,nofollow on the matching name. Paul's default should be index,follow for these unless there's a reason to opt out, since AI-engine surface is a primary acquisition channel for this wiki.nn## Maintenance cadencenn- Per published page: add the new page's link to the llms.txt source under the appropriate H2 section. Re-trigger the super.so route if cached.n- Per Tradition added to schema: verify the Tradition appears in llms.txt and Operations Manual.n- Per quarter: spot-check https://wiki.paulmaxwell.dev/llms.txt from an incognito session; verify rendering.nn## Open questions for Paulnn1. Does super.so support URL rewrites from /llms.txt to a Notion page slug? If not, the slug-rules convention needs an exception or a different approach is required.n2. Should the site allow or disallow specific AI crawlers? Default recommendation: allow all (this is a reference wiki; AI surface is upside).n3. Should the llms.txt source be set to Published Status (so it appears in normal navigation) or kept Draft + No-Index + only-reachable-at-/llms.txt?

Thread F is the AEO infrastructure thread. Closes when llms.txt is live at the canonical URL, robots-equivalent meta tags are configured in super.so, and the maintenance cadence is established.