Cross-machine workflows broke silently when the agent reasoned on a stale
MCP cache, or hit sha-based optimistic-lock 422s on shared-wiki writes
because another host had pushed minutes earlier. Codify the missing
pre-flight as Step 0:
1. Always probe mcp__projects-meta__meta_status first.
2. If cache_age_minutes > 10 OR errors_count > 0 → run
`node ~/.local/projects-meta-mcp/dist/sync.js` before any read.
3. For shared-wiki WRITES (knowledge_ingest, knowledge_promote) →
unconditional `git -C ~/projects/projects-wiki pull --ff-only`
(sha-lock will reject the commit otherwise; failure is opaque).
4. Tasks-mutations: sync via dist/sync.js is enough (no local clone
of target tasks repo).
5. Sync 401/403 → STOP, send user to ~/.config/projects-mcp/auth.toml
to rotate gitea_token. No silent retry.
10-minute cache window chosen as the read threshold — balances
multi-machine drift detection against unnecessary Gitea round-trips.
Common mistakes + Red flags expanded to call out the new failure modes.
README mirrors the rule for human readers. Wiki concept page
projects-meta-skills.md gets a "Freshness gate (v1.1.0)" subsection.
Closes [using-projects-meta-freshness-gate].
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
vitya
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