K|A Vault Life OS Edition · Supersedes Five-Room Model

Design principle, architectural shift summary, and federation position.

Core Architectural Shift

The previous Five-Room zone model organized notes by function — what a note was doing in the system. This edition organizes by domain — what area of life or work the note belongs to. Note classes survive as metadata (type: frontmatter field), not as folder structure. The distillation lifecycle (capture → working → stable) is tracked via status: rather than by physically moving notes between zones.

Domains describe what a note is about, not what it is doing. Ten domains, each with a single-word identity.

What Changed From the Five-Room Model

Classes are metadata — they live in type: frontmatter, not in folder structure. Every note belongs to exactly one class.

Canonical pattern with JD ID prefix, class prefix, and title. Date suffix only where meaningful.

[JD.ID] [CLASS PREFIX] [Human-Readable Title] (YYYY-MM-DD optional)

40.04 CONCEPT Compound Leverage in Fundraising
20.01 PROJECT LRAM Education Fund (2026)
20.12 REF Leah Ferguson File Hierarchy SOP (2026-04-29)
90.03 ARCHIVE P-LRAM Closeout Snapshot (2026-05-01)
00.02 SOP Note Class Assignment Rules
00.01 INBOX Daily Inbox
30.11 DRAFT Annual Report 2026

Minimum viable frontmatter for all core notes, plus extended schema by class. The domain: field is new in this edition.

Minimum Viable Frontmatter

---
title: ""
created: YYYY-MM-DD
updated: YYYY-MM-DD
status: draft | active | stable | archived | retired
type: [note class]
domain: self | work | create | know | money | live | connect | build | archive
area: ""
tags: []
rag_indexable: true
---

Extended Schema — Concept

status: stable
type: concept
domain: know
reviewed: YYYY-MM-DD
rag_indexable: true

Extended Schema — Project

status: active | on-hold | complete
type: project
domain: work
priority: high | medium | low
days_stale: 0
rag_indexable: true

Extended Schema — Draft (new field: target_class)

status: draft | active
type: draft
domain: ""
target_class: concept | reference | archive
rag_indexable: false

Field Reference

How raw captures become durable knowledge. Replaces the Studio zone. Lifecycle tracked in frontmatter, not by moving between folders.

The Lifecycle

Domain Inbox Structure

Routing Status Values

MOC notes surface knowledge — they do not hold it. All MOCs live in 00 META. Domain-level and project-level MOCs query by domain: frontmatter field.

MOC: Active Work

TABLE domain, area, updated, (date(today) - updated).days AS days_stale
FROM ""
WHERE type = "project" OR type = "draft"
AND status = "active"
SORT domain ASC, days_stale DESC

MOC: Distillation Queue

FROM ""
WHERE (type = "capture" AND routing_status = "distill")
   OR (type = "draft" AND target_class = "concept")
SORT age DESC
LIMIT 25

MOC: Inbox (all domains)

FROM ""
WHERE type = "capture"
  AND (routing_status = "unrouted" OR routing_status = null)
SORT created ASC
LIMIT 30

MOC: Needs Review (concept notes)

FROM ""
WHERE type = "concept"
  AND status = "stable"
  AND rag_indexable = true
  AND (date(today) - reviewed).days > 30
SORT days_since_review DESC
LIMIT 20

MOC: Missing Metadata

FROM ""
WHERE rag_indexable = true
  AND (type = null OR status = null OR domain = null OR area = null)
  AND !contains(file.path, "00 META/Templates")
  AND !contains(file.path, "00.01")
SORT file.path ASC

Domain-Level MOC (template)

Replace "work" with the target domain for each domain MOC:
FROM ""
WHERE domain = "work"
  AND type != "moc" AND type != "template"
SORT status ASC, updated DESC

Domain-to-JD mapping, standard zeros per domain, and ID assignment rules for each note class.

JD ID Assignment

When notes and projects move to 90–99 ARCHIVE, how archive packets are structured, and what happens afterward.

When to Archive

Archive Packet Structure

## 9.2.1 Summary
What this project was and what it aimed to achieve.

## 9.2.2 Outcome
What was actually produced, decided, or concluded.

## 9.2.3 Key Outputs
- [[Link to deliverable or final note]]

## 9.2.4 Lessons
1-3 sentences: what worked, what didn't, what this informs.

## 9.2.5 Provenance
- Origin domain: `20 WORK`
- Origin JD ID: `20.XX`
- Closed: YYYY-MM-DD

After Archiving

When to review what. The inbox must not accumulate; the Library must not stagnate.

Automation reduces friction. It does not replace judgment. A vault that manages itself becomes one nobody understands.

Terms specific to this edition of the K|A IA. Updated from the Five-Room model vocabulary.