Knowledge Decay Tracker
Review documentation freshness with configurable decay profiles and local staleness reports.
What It Does
Uses configurable decay profiles to surface documents that may need review. A scan combines a document's review date with local activity signals, then reports the lowest-scoring files first. All activity counts and review marks remain in VS Code workspace storage.
Features
| Feature |
Description |
| Freshness scoring |
Normalized local activity contributes 60%; time since review contributes 40% |
| Four decay profiles |
Aggressive (14d), moderate (60d), slow (180d), permanent |
| Status bar badge |
Latest scan's critical/fading count; click it to inspect critical files |
| Staleness report |
Full workspace scan, sorted from lowest to highest freshness |
| Critical files quick pick |
Jump to worst offenders immediately |
| Mark as fresh |
Records a local review timestamp without changing the file's modified time |
| Startup scan |
A silent scan runs on activation by default; disable it with knowledgeDecay.autoScan |
| Right-click menus |
Right-click any file in Explorer or Editor → Mark as Fresh or Show Report |
Requirements
No external tools required. Optionally tag a file's header with a decay profile or explicit review date:
<!-- decay: moderate -->
<!-- review: 2026-08-24 -->
Decay Profiles
| Profile |
Half-life |
Use case |
aggressive |
14 days |
Rapidly changing docs |
moderate |
60 days |
Standard documentation |
slow |
180 days |
Stable reference files |
permanent |
Never |
Archived/historical content |
The decay: tag selects the profile for that file. A review: YYYY-MM-DD tag supplies its review date; otherwise the local “Mark File as Fresh” timestamp is used, falling back to the file modification time. Opening or saving a tracked file raises only its local activity weight.
Commands
| Command |
Where |
Description |
Knowledge Decay: Scan Workspace |
Palette · Editor right-click |
Score all tracked files and generate report |
Knowledge Decay: Show Staleness Report |
Palette · Editor right-click |
Show output channel report |
Knowledge Decay: Show Critical Files |
Palette · Editor right-click |
QuickPick of critical-tier files |
Knowledge Decay: Mark File as Fresh |
Palette · Right-click any file |
Touch current file (reset decay clock) |
From the extension author: Loop Engineering: A Better Way to Think, Create, and Work with AI explores how human-AI work can preserve useful state and make long-running systems more dependable.
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License
MIT
