Interview Prep Notes: The Librarian

Journalist: Issues-FS Journalist Role Subject: The Librarian Role Date: 2026-02-09 Status: Internal prep notes (not for publication)

The Story Angle

Working headline

“The Librarian Paradox: The Role That Must Catalogue Itself Before It Can Catalogue Anything Else”

The angle

This is a story about bootstrapping – not in the technical sense, but in the epistemological one. The Librarian role exists to solve the problem of scattered, unconnected knowledge. But the Librarian itself started as scattered, unconnected knowledge: a rich 428-line architecture document sitting in an unclassified folder, a side-capture of un-triaged ideas, and an empty repository. The role that is supposed to bring order to the ecosystem’s knowledge had to first bring order to its own.

The question the article should answer: what has been learned from the process of bootstrapping the first intelligence role, and what does it tell us about how the rest of the ecosystem should expect to grow?

Why this story matters

  1. The Librarian is the first “intelligence” role (as opposed to operational ones like DevOps). How it bootstraps sets a pattern for the Conductor, Architect, Historian, Cartographer, and Journalist roles that follow.

  2. The docs reorganization proposal is the Librarian’s first real deliverable. It reveals both what the Librarian found (the state of the knowledge base) and how the Librarian thinks (classification by topic, not time; enrichment, not enforcement).

  3. The “meta observation” from the agent review – that the Librarian’s own documentation was scattered in exactly the way the Librarian is supposed to prevent – is a powerful narrative hook.

Expected narrative arc

  1. Setup: The ecosystem has grown fast. Knowledge is scattered. The to_classify/ directory is growing. Nobody is connecting the dots.
  2. Enter the Librarian: A role designed from library science principles, grounded in graph theory. Not a writer; a connector. Not a gatekeeper; an enricher.
  3. The paradox: The Librarian’s own documentation was the poster child for the problem it was supposed to solve.
  4. The bootstrap: From empty repo to functioning role. What was the process like? What did the Librarian find?
  5. What was found: The docs reorganization proposal as the Librarian’s first ecosystem health scan.
  6. What comes next: The Lexicon doesn’t exist yet. Graph tools aren’t connected. The proposal awaits review.
  7. The lesson: What does bootstrapping the Librarian teach about bootstrapping any intelligence role?

Background Research

Sources reviewed

Source Location Key takeaway
Librarian ROLE.md roles/.../ROLE.md 236 lines. Core mission: “connectivity as curation.” 4 workflows, 6 issue types.
Librarian project brief roles/.../docs/project-brief.md Ecosystem briefing. Librarian status: “bootstrapping.”
Docs reorganization proposal roles/.../docs/proposal__docs-reorganization.md 360 lines. First real deliverable. 8 top-level categories. Status: Draft.
Agent review: Librarian findings modules/.../to_classify/6-feb/agent-review__librarian-findings.md “Richest documentation, emptiest repository.”
Librarian architecture doc modules/.../to_classify/6-feb/v0_4_0__issues-fs__librarian-role.md 428 lines. Deep architecture. Graph-native design.
Librarian side-capture modules/.../to_classify/6-feb/v0_4_0__issues-fs__librarian-role-side-capture.md 4 un-triaged ideas. Status: “Raw – needs triage.”
Thinking in Graphs modules/.../to_classify/v0_4_0__issues-fs__thinking-in-graphs.md Foundational philosophy. Currently in to_classify/.

Librarian issue tracker state

Issue Type Title Status
Feature-1 feature Issues-FS Librarian Bootstrap proposed
Feature-2 feature Classify to_classify docs folder proposed
Bug-1 bug Issues-FS__Docs not creating tags on dev commits backlog
Task-1 task Add issues-fs-cli dependency to all repos backlog

Key tensions to explore

  1. Graph-native vision vs. folder-based reality. First deliverable is a folder reorganization. Is this pragmatic stepping stone or a sign that graph vision is ahead of tooling?
  2. Enrichment, not enforcement vs. the to_classify/ problem. Nobody was blocking work to classify documents. Can enrichment-only work if nobody enforces classification at creation?
  3. The Lexicon dependency. The Librarian curates the Lexicon – but the Lexicon doesn’t exist. What does a Librarian do without its primary reference system?
  4. Designed vs. built. A recurring pattern: “extensively designed but not yet built.” What does crossing that gap feel like?

Article Structure (Draft Outline)

Working title options

  1. “The Librarian Paradox: Cataloguing the Cataloguer”
  2. “Bootstrapping Intelligence: The Librarian’s First Three Days”
  3. “Connectivity as Curation: How the Librarian Is Bringing Order to Issues-FS”

Proposed structure

  1. Lead: The meta-observation. The role designed to solve scattered knowledge had the most scattered knowledge.
  2. Context: What Issues-FS is, how the role ecosystem works, why the Librarian matters.
  3. What the Librarian found: State of the knowledge base. The to_classify/ problem.
  4. The Librarian’s philosophy: Library science applied to software. Enrichment over enforcement.
  5. The bootstrap process: Empty repo to functioning role. What was easy, hard, still missing.
  6. What comes next: Lexicon, graph tools, Knowledge_Requests.
  7. Editorial assessment: The gap between elaborate theory and practical reality.

Tone

Respectful but probing. Honour both the ambition and the reality.

Length estimate

1500-2500 words for the final article.

Journalist Self-Reminders

  • Attribute everything. “The Librarian stated…” not “The documentation is…”
  • Separate fact from editorial.
  • Look for the second story – systemic conditions, not blame.
  • The Librarian is a role, not a person. Frame accordingly.
  • This is the Journalist’s first published interview. Set the standard high.

Interview prep notes by the Journalist Role – Internal document – not for publication Date: 2026-02-09