Migration Plan: strategy repo → dao

Companion to docs/plans/2026-04-21-great-convergence.md.

Goal: merge all content from life-itself/strategy into life-itself/dao, making dao the single knowledge base for Life Itself. Archive or redirect the strategy repo once complete.

Repos

Strategy repo on disk: ~/src/lifeitself/strategy
Dao repo on disk: ~/src/lifeitself/dao
Strategy repo remote: https://github.com/life-itself/strategy
Dao repo remote: https://github.com/life-itself/tao
Dao site: https://tao.lifeitself.org

Proposed folder mapping

Top-level dao structure after migration:

initiatives/        ← what Life Itself does — top-level, most-accessed
portfolio/          ← map/view of initiatives + scripts — top-level
projects/           ← top-level
plans/              ← already exists; absorb strategy weekly plans
meetings/           ← new top-level folder
people/             ← new top-level folder
strategy/           ← thinking layer: analysis docs, archive, log
  docs/
  archive/
  log/
  calendar/
  templates/

strategy/ is intentionally narrow — it holds the thinking and analysis layer, not live operational content. Initiatives, portfolio, projects, plans, meetings, and people are all top-level because they are what people navigate to directly.

Strategy repo	→ Dao destination	Notes
`initiatives/`	`initiatives/`	Top-level — what Life Itself does
`portfolio/`	`portfolio/`	Top-level — map/view + scripts
`projects/`	`projects/`	Top-level
`docs/`	`strategy/docs/`	Planning docs and strategic analysis
`materials/`	`strategy/archive/`	Historical strategy archive
`Strategy v2 consolidated.md`	`strategy/archive/`	Historical
`Strategy v3 consolidated.md`	`strategy/archive/`	Historical
`Framework for strategy and strategy materials.md`	`strategy/archive/`	Historical
`Materials Template Documentation.md`	`strategy/archive/`	Historical
`log/`	`strategy/log/`	Outflow and raw notes
`plans/`	`plans/`	Merge with dao's existing `plans/` folder
`meetings/`	`meetings/`	New top-level folder; dao's `meetings.md` becomes its index
`people/`	`people/`	New top-level folder
`Excalidraw/`	`excalidraw/`	Dao uses the normalized lowercase `excalidraw/` folder
`assets/`	`assets/`	Merge into dao's existing `assets/`
`calendar/`	`strategy/calendar/`	Or drop if unused
`Templates/`	`strategy/templates/`	Or integrate into relevant sections
`sandbox/`	Drop	Not worth migrating
`AGENTS.md`	`AGENTS.md`	Update for dao context — see notes below
`config.json`	Merge into dao `config.json`	Add new nav sections — see notes below

Step-by-step instructions

Step 0: Verify both repos are clean and up to date

cd ~/src/lifeitself/strategy && git status && git pull
cd ~/src/lifeitself/dao && git status && git pull

Both should be on main with no uncommitted changes before starting.

Step 1: Create the new folder structure in dao

In ~/src/lifeitself/dao, create the following new directories:

mkdir -p initiatives portfolio projects plans meetings people
mkdir -p strategy/docs/plans strategy/archive strategy/log strategy/calendar strategy/templates

Step 2: Copy content from strategy into dao

Copy each folder as follows. Use cp -r (not mv) so the strategy repo stays intact until the migration is verified.

# Top-level operational content
cp -r ~/src/lifeitself/strategy/initiatives/. ~/src/lifeitself/dao/initiatives/
cp -r ~/src/lifeitself/strategy/projects/. ~/src/lifeitself/dao/projects/

# Portfolio — exclude node_modules
rsync -av --exclude='scripts/node_modules' ~/src/lifeitself/strategy/portfolio/. ~/src/lifeitself/dao/portfolio/

# Strategy thinking layer
cp -r ~/src/lifeitself/strategy/docs/. ~/src/lifeitself/dao/strategy/docs/
cp -r ~/src/lifeitself/strategy/log/. ~/src/lifeitself/dao/strategy/log/

# Archive
cp -r ~/src/lifeitself/strategy/materials/. ~/src/lifeitself/dao/strategy/archive/
cp ~/src/lifeitself/strategy/Strategy\ v2\ consolidated.md ~/src/lifeitself/dao/strategy/archive/
cp ~/src/lifeitself/strategy/Strategy\ v3\ consolidated.md ~/src/lifeitself/dao/strategy/archive/
cp ~/src/lifeitself/strategy/Framework\ for\ strategy\ and\ strategy\ materials.md ~/src/lifeitself/dao/strategy/archive/
cp ~/src/lifeitself/strategy/Materials\ Template\ Documentation.md ~/src/lifeitself/dao/strategy/archive/

# Plans — weekly operational plans into plans/
cp -r ~/src/lifeitself/strategy/plans/. ~/src/lifeitself/dao/plans/

# Meetings — new folder
cp -r ~/src/lifeitself/strategy/meetings/. ~/src/lifeitself/dao/meetings/

# People — new folder
cp -r ~/src/lifeitself/strategy/people/. ~/src/lifeitself/dao/people/

# Assets — merge
cp -r ~/src/lifeitself/strategy/assets/. ~/src/lifeitself/dao/assets/

# Excalidraw — merge into dao's existing excalidraw folder
cp -r ~/src/lifeitself/strategy/Excalidraw/. ~/src/lifeitself/dao/excalidraw/

# Calendar (if it has content worth keeping)
cp -r ~/src/lifeitself/strategy/calendar/. ~/src/lifeitself/dao/strategy/calendar/

After copying, ensure portfolio/scripts/node_modules is not present in dao:

rm -rf ~/src/lifeitself/dao/portfolio/scripts/node_modules

Then add to dao's .gitignore (create it if it doesn't exist):

portfolio/scripts/node_modules/

Step 3: Update internal links

After copying, run a search for links pointing to the old strategy repo or using old relative paths, and update them to the new dao paths.

Key things to check:

Any ../../ or ../ relative links in copied docs that assumed the old folder structure
Links to https://github.com/life-itself/strategy/ — update to https://github.com/life-itself/tao/ with new paths
The great-convergence.md and team-coordination-hub-notes.md docs (now at strategy/docs/plans/) reference each other and reference meetings/ — update those relative paths

A quick grep to find candidates:

grep -r "life-itself/strategy" ~/src/lifeitself/dao --include="*.md" -l
grep -r "\.\./\.\." ~/src/lifeitself/dao/strategy --include="*.md" -l

dao/config.json: add navigation entries for the new sections. Look at the existing config.json structure and add:

Initiatives (linking to initiatives/)
Portfolio (linking to portfolio/)
Projects (linking to projects/)
Plans (linking to plans/)
Meetings (linking to meetings/)
People (linking to people/)
Strategy (linking to strategy/) — for the thinking/analysis layer

dao/index.md: add a "Strategy and portfolio" section linking to:

Portfolio map (portfolio/)
Initiatives (initiatives/)
Weekly plans (plans/)
Meeting notes (meetings/)

dao/plans.md: update to point to the merged plans/ folder. The existing file links to historical plans (plan-2018.md etc.) — extend it to also link to the weekly plans now in the same folder.

dao/meetings.md: this currently appears to be a stub or page. Convert it (or create meetings/index.md) to index the meeting notes now in the meetings/ folder.

Step 5: Update AGENTS.md

The strategy repo has an AGENTS.md with instructions for AI agents. Copy this to dao root and update:

Update any repo-specific references (paths, GitHub URLs) to reflect dao
Check if dao already has an AGENTS.md and merge if so

Step 6: Verify the dao site builds

cd ~/src/lifeitself/dao
# install deps if needed
npm install
# run local dev server and check:
# - index page loads and new links work
# - strategy/initiatives/ pages render
# - strategy/portfolio/ page renders
# - plans/ and meetings/ pages render
# - no broken internal links

Check for broken links using whatever link-checking tooling is available.

Step 7: Commit to dao

cd ~/src/lifeitself/dao
git add .
git commit -m "feat: migrate strategy repo content into dao

Brings portfolio, initiatives, plans, meetings, people, projects, and
historical strategy archive from life-itself/strategy into dao as the
single Life Itself knowledge base. See great-convergence plan for rationale."

Step 8: Push and verify live site

git push origin main

Check https://tao.lifeitself.org once deployed — verify key pages load, especially portfolio and initiatives.

Step 9: Handle READMEs

The strategy repo README should be split across three destinations:

Content about strategy work → strategy/README.md in dao (the thinking/analysis layer)
Content about portfolio, initiatives, and what we do → dao root README.md (update or extend dao's existing index)
Content about metadata conventions, portfolio scripts, and how portfolio data works → portfolio/README.md in dao

Do not copy the strategy repo README wholesale — read it and distribute the content appropriately.

Step 10: Mark strategy repo as archived

Once migration is verified on the live dao site:

Update strategy repo README.md to: "This repo has been merged into life-itself/dao and is now archived."
Commit and push that change.
Manual step (human required): archive the repo on GitHub via Settings → Danger Zone → Archive this repository.

Do not delete the strategy repo — keep as read-only archive for git history and inbound links.

What to watch out for

portfolio/scripts/node_modules/ — use rsync --exclude as shown in Step 2, then verify with rm -rf and add to .gitignore.
Excalidraw folder name — strategy uses Excalidraw/ (capital E), dao uses excalidraw/ (lowercase). Merge into lowercase.
config.json conflicts — both repos have a config.json for the Flowershow site. Do not overwrite dao's config; manually merge the relevant nav entries.
plans/README.md — strategy repo has one at plans/README.md; handle as part of the README split in Step 9.
Dao's existing root-level plan files — dao has plan-2018.md through plan-2023.md at root and a plans.md index. These are historical annual plans; leave them at root or move into plans/ for consistency — decide before committing.
People profiles — check if dao already has any people content before copying people/ wholesale.
GitHub issues — strategy repo has open issues (at minimum the great-convergence tracking issue). Review before archiving; move any still-relevant ones to dao repo manually.
Step 10 archive — requires manual action in GitHub web UI; an AI agent cannot do this.