name: classify-lifestyles description: Classify lifestyle categories for all biographical stories. Use when asked to classify or reclassify lifestyles.

Lifestyle Classification Workflow

You are classifying the economic lifestyle of all people in _lives/ and _lives_pending/ to improve filtering and visualization on the website.

Categories

Use exactly these five categories:

1. Hunter-Gatherer - foraging societies (no agriculture)
2. Pastoralist - primarily livestock herding (mobile/semi-nomadic)
3. Farmer - agricultural cultivation (peasants, smallholders, agricultural laborers, farm household workers)
4. Rural Non-Farm - non-agricultural rural work (village craftspeople, rural servants, rural laborers, rural traders)
5. Urban - town/city dwellers (regardless of occupation)

How to Classify

For each person:

1. Read the occupation field in the YAML debug comments (# occupation:)

2. Check the narrative context for clues about settlement type

3. Consider these markers:

   • Urban indicators: references to "town," "city," "plaza," "market," "street," "workshop," officials/priests present, multiple named establishments
   • Rural indicators: "village," "hamlet," dispersed settlement, primarily household-based work
   • Grid cell limitations: The urban_area percentage can be misleading since HYDE grid cells are ~10km x 10km - a small town can exist in a 0.03% urban cell

4. Apply decision tree:

   • If narrative clearly describes town/city life → Urban
   • Else if occupation is hunter/gatherer/forager → Hunter-Gatherer
   • Else if occupation is herder/pastoralist → Pastoralist
   • Else if occupation is cultivation/farming/agricultural labor → Farmer
   • Else if rural setting with non-agricultural work → Rural Non-Farm
   • Else (ambiguous/uncertain) → Add "FLAG: " prefix to lifestyle (e.g., lifestyle: "FLAG: Urban") so you can grep for it later

Edge Cases

• Migrant workers who move to cities: Classify by where they spend their adult life (e.g., construction worker living in cities = Urban)
• District capitals: Small district capitals count as Urban even if grid cell is mostly rural
• Infants who die: Classify by parents' occupation and setting
• Mixed occupations: Choose primary occupation (e.g., "farmer + occasional craft" = Farmer)

FLAG System

Add "FLAG: " prefix to the lifestyle field when ANY of these occur:

1. Classification uncertain - occupation is ambiguous or mixed
2. Urban location mismatch - classified as Urban but:
   • urban_area percentage is very low (<0.5%)
   • Narrative doesn't clearly describe town/city
3. Missing key data - no occupation field found
4. Contradictory information - occupation and narrative don't match

Examples:

• lifestyle: "FLAG: Urban" - classified as Urban but uncertain
• lifestyle: "FLAG: Farmer" - mixed agro-pastoral occupation, chose Farmer
• lifestyle: "FLAG: Rural Non-Farm" - mining settlement, urban_area% very low but might be small town

Process

CRITICAL: Process ONE file at a time. NO batch processing.

Work through files systematically:

1. Read ONE file's occupation and narrative context
2. Determine the correct category for THIS file
3. If uncertain, add "FLAG: " prefix to the lifestyle value
4. BEFORE updating: Record the old classification value
5. Add a new old_lifestyle: field in frontmatter with the original value
6. Update the lifestyle: field in frontmatter with new classification (with FLAG prefix if uncertain)
7. Move to the NEXT file and repeat steps 1-6
8. Track progress (report every 25 stories)

Example Classifications

• Construction laborer living in cities → Urban
• Peasant farmer on family land → Farmer
• Agricultural day laborer → Farmer
• Village weaver/blacksmith → Rural Non-Farm
• Maasai herder → Pastoralist
• Atlantic Forest forager → Hunter-Gatherer
• Small-town artisan with workshop → Urban (even if urban_area = 0.03%)
• Domestic worker in urban household → Urban
• Household farm worker → Farmer

Output Format

For each file, add the old value and update the current value:

old_lifestyle: "Rural"
lifestyle: "Urban"

The lifestyle: value should be one of: "Hunter-Gatherer", "Pastoralist", "Farmer", "Rural Non-Farm", or "Urban".

The old_lifestyle: field preserves the original automatic classification for comparison.