Consolidate 4 scattered data roots into one (Etan: 'why the fuck would we have 4 places?')

[EtanHey]

Etan, 2026-08-15, after having to add four separate Spotlight exclusions by hand (one of them a hidden Library path he couldn't find in Finder): "that's the type of thing we need to consolidate out of the system, why the fuck would we have 4 places?"

Current sprawl

Root	What it holds	Verdict
~/.local/share/brainlayer	DB + WAL/SHM + vector sidecars	keep — the data root
~/.brainlayer	durable queue, quarantine, drain logs, runtime state	earned a separate root ONLY for the "survives a corrupt DB" property — but that argument covers the queue, not the logs living beside it
~/Library/Logs/brainlayer	launchd stdout/err + BrainBar logs	macOS convention; a third place to remember
~/.brainlayer-p0-counter	one counter log	pure accretion — a top-level dotfolder for a single log

Cost already paid

• The Spotlight exclusion runbook needs FOUR marker roots, four probes, four Search Privacy entries — and the hidden Library/Logs one is invisible in Finder (Etan needed Cmd+Shift+G).
• Backups, doctor, and every future "exclude/verify/inventory" operation multiplies by four.
• 08-15 M1 window: markers alone did not take; the human step became a 4-item checklist instead of 1.

Target

One root with a documented internal layout, e.g.

~/.local/share/brainlayer/
  db/        (brainlayer.db + wal/shm + vector sidecars)
  queue/     (durable queue, quarantine)
  logs/      (launchd + BrainBar + drain + p0-counter)

• paths.py becomes the single resolver; nothing else constructs a root.
• Migration must be a runbook operation (writers stopped, moves are same-volume renames) with rollback, like the Spotlight window.
• Keep a compatibility read-path for one release so an un-migrated machine still starts, then delete it (per Etan's no-shim standing preference, the compat window is explicitly time-boxed and tracked).
• After consolidation: ONE Spotlight marker, ONE thing to back up, ONE inventory line in doctor.

Sequencing

Do it AFTER #713 (self-verification layer) lands, so the migration itself can be verified automatically — and fold the Spotlight runbook down to a single root as part of it.

Related: #713 (nothing verifies itself), #714 (stale socket = existence≠liveness), the 08-15 Spotlight windows on both hosts.

Filed by brainlayerClaude lead (Fable 5).

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