Problem
When files are mined into a wing, there is no way to remove or reassign the resulting drawers. This causes issues in several scenarios:
-
Wrong wing — If a file is accidentally mined into the wrong wing (e.g., career data in wing_personal instead of wing_career), there is no way to undo it. The only workaround is to mine the file into the correct wing (creating duplicates) and live with the stale entries.
-
Stale source references — If a source file is deleted or moved after mining, the vector index retains broken file path references. Search results reference files that no longer exist on disk, producing errors like: The source file isn't on disk but it's in the vector index.
-
Data hygiene — Over time, outdated or incorrect drawers accumulate with no way to prune them. mempalace repair rebuilds the index but does not remove drawers with broken source references.
Proposed Solution
Add a mempalace delete (or prune / remove) command with options like:
# Delete all drawers from a specific source file
mempalace delete --source /path/to/file.md
# Delete all drawers in a wing/room
mempalace delete --wing wing_personal --room general
# Delete drawers matching a query
mempalace delete --query "stale keyword"
# Dry run
mempalace delete --source /path/to/file.md --dry-run
Current Workaround
- Mine the file into the correct wing (creates duplicates in search results)
- Restore from
~/.mempalace/palace.backup after mempalace repair and re-mine only the files you want (fragile, loses any drawers not backed up from source)
- Manually edit the chroma SQLite database (dangerous, not recommended)
Environment
- mempalace installed via
uv tool install mempalace
- Palace stored locally at
~/.mempalace/palace
- 6,800+ drawers across 20+ rooms
Problem
When files are mined into a wing, there is no way to remove or reassign the resulting drawers. This causes issues in several scenarios:
Wrong wing — If a file is accidentally mined into the wrong wing (e.g., career data in
wing_personalinstead ofwing_career), there is no way to undo it. The only workaround is to mine the file into the correct wing (creating duplicates) and live with the stale entries.Stale source references — If a source file is deleted or moved after mining, the vector index retains broken file path references. Search results reference files that no longer exist on disk, producing errors like:
The source file isn't on disk but it's in the vector index.Data hygiene — Over time, outdated or incorrect drawers accumulate with no way to prune them.
mempalace repairrebuilds the index but does not remove drawers with broken source references.Proposed Solution
Add a
mempalace delete(orprune/remove) command with options like:Current Workaround
~/.mempalace/palace.backupaftermempalace repairand re-mine only the files you want (fragile, loses any drawers not backed up from source)Environment
uv tool install mempalace~/.mempalace/palace