fix(memory): hot-layer entry markers — scaffold both, heal a missing BEGIN, migrate existing installs

[rpriven]

Fixes #1409. Closes #1426 (my duplicate report — @badosanjos reported the same root cause first in #1409).

The bug (two parts, one failure)

On a stock install the hot-layer memory files never load into a session. The reviewer
writes durable facts, but LoadMemory.hook.ts injects (no entries yet). Root cause is
two compounding defects:

1. Templates ship with no entry markers. install/USER/PRINCIPAL/PRINCIPAL_MEMORY.md
   and install/USER/DIGITAL_ASSISTANT/DA_MEMORY.md had neither <!-- BEGIN ENTRIES -->
   nor <!-- END ENTRIES -->. The reader slices between those markers, finds no BEGIN,
   and returns empty.
2. serializeFile heals a missing END but never a missing BEGIN. So every write to a
   marker-less file appended another END and never a BEGIN — the file accreted stray
   END markers, read as empty forever, and dedup/cap/eviction never ran.

The fix

Fresh installs — add both markers to the two shipped templates:

<!-- BEGIN ENTRIES -->
<!-- END ENTRIES -->

Can't recur — serializeFile now adds a missing BEGIN_MARKER, symmetric to the
existing END_MARKER guard.

Existing data survives — parseFile, on a marker-less/malformed file, now recovers
the real PREFIX_PATTERN entries from the body (dropping stray markers) instead of
discarding them, so the next write re-emits them inside a canonical block. The recovery
scanner skips lines inside code fences and blockquotes, so a documented PREFERENCE: …
example is never adopted as a real entry.

Existing installs — self-heal, plus an on-demand accelerator. Once a user updates and
has the fixed MemoryWriter.ts, a broken file repairs automatically on the next reviewer
write (the parseFile recovery above re-blocks the orphaned entries) — no manual step.
The Update workflow's ScaffoldUser.ts copyMissing deliberately never overwrites existing
USER files, so the template fix alone would not touch them; the writer fix is what covers
them. For an immediate repair without waiting for the next reviewer cycle, the new
standalone MigrateMemoryMarkers.ts fixes both files on demand — same invocation model as
the existing MigrateContextFreshness / MigrateTelosFreshness tools (run directly; those
are not auto-invoked by Update either). It's idempotent (canonical files skipped), backs up
before repair, supports --dry-run, and reuses the tested read()→setEntries() path.
Maintainers may optionally wire the migrations into the Update workflow as a separate
enhancement.

Testing

Two runnable tests (no test runner is configured in the repo; run with an isolated HOME):

• MemoryWriter.markers.test.ts — 12 checks: fresh-template round-trip, the previously
  untested cross-session path (write in session A → read in session B), recovery of
  an already-corrupted file through the real add-flow, and the fence/blockquote guard.
• MigrateMemoryMarkers.test.ts — 9 checks: dry-run is side-effect-free, corrupted files
  heal (orphaned entries recovered), canonical files are left byte-identical, idempotent
  on re-run.

HOME=$(mktemp -d) bun LifeOS/install/LIFEOS/TOOLS/MemoryWriter.markers.test.ts
HOME=$(mktemp -d) bun LifeOS/install/LIFEOS/TOOLS/MigrateMemoryMarkers.test.ts

Both green. MemoryWriter.ts and MigrateMemoryMarkers.ts compile clean under
bun build. The happy path is provably unaffected: the new recovery branch only runs when
markers are missing/malformed, and the new BEGIN guard is a structural no-op on well-formed
files (their preEntriesBody already contains the marker).

For users already on a broken install

After updating, existing memory auto-repairs on the next reviewer write. To fix immediately
without waiting, run the migration:

bun ~/.claude/LIFEOS/TOOLS/MigrateMemoryMarkers.ts        # --dry-run to preview

Or hand-edit both ~/.claude/LIFEOS/USER/PRINCIPAL/PRINCIPAL_MEMORY.md and
.../DIGITAL_ASSISTANT/DA_MEMORY.md: put one <!-- BEGIN ENTRIES --> immediately above the
first entry and a single <!-- END ENTRIES --> after the last, removing any stray END
markers in between. No data is lost — the stranded entries are preserved, just re-blocked.

Out of scope (noted, not fixed here)

• parseFile locates markers with indexOf, so prose that mentions the literal marker
  text before the real block could shadow entries. Pre-existing (reproduces on main
  un-patched); worth hardening to whole-line marker matching in a follow-up.
• allowDrastic has no live wiring anywhere — a legitimate full-clear is structurally
  unreachable. Orthogonal; separate follow-up.

[danielmiessler]

Thanks a lot for this, @rpriven — really appreciate you flagging it and taking the time to write the fix.

When I went back through the current source, this turns out to already be handled: hot-layer memory marker heal already implemented independently in current source. The system has moved a fair bit since you opened this (the PAI → LifeOS rename and a few subsystem rewrites), so the gap you spotted has since been closed independently.

Going to close this one out on that basis — but genuinely grateful for the contribution. 🙏