diff --git a/skills/distill-best-practices/SKILL.md b/skills/distill-best-practices/SKILL.md
index 25583a8..a79c8e9 100644
--- a/skills/distill-best-practices/SKILL.md
+++ b/skills/distill-best-practices/SKILL.md
@@ -15,19 +15,19 @@ You are extracting generalisable best practices from project-specific memory fil
 ## Pre-gathered context
 
 ### Distill state
-!`cat ~/dev/claude/projects/claude-foundations/best-practices/.distill-state.json 2>/dev/null || echo "{}"`
+!`cat ../claude-foundations/best-practices/.distill-state.json 2>/dev/null || echo "{}"`
 
 ### Settings
-!`cat ~/dev/claude/projects/claude-foundations/settings.yaml 2>/dev/null || echo "No settings file found"`
+!`cat settings.yaml 2>/dev/null || cat ../claude-foundations/settings.yaml 2>/dev/null || echo "No settings file found"`
 
 ### Current best-practices index
-!`cat ~/dev/claude/projects/claude-foundations/BESTPRACTICES.md 2>/dev/null || echo "No index found"`
+!`cat ../claude-foundations/BESTPRACTICES.md 2>/dev/null || echo "No index found"`
 
 ### Available best-practices files
-!`ls -1 ~/dev/claude/projects/claude-foundations/best-practices/ 2>/dev/null || echo "No best-practices directory"`
+!`ls -1 ../claude-foundations/best-practices/ 2>/dev/null || echo "No best-practices directory"`
 
 ### Projects directory listing
-!`ls -1d ~/dev/claude/projects/*/ 2>/dev/null || echo "No projects directory"`
+!`ls -1d ../*/ 2>/dev/null || echo "No projects directory"`
 
 ## Instructions
 
diff --git a/skills/log/SKILL.md b/skills/log/SKILL.md
index e43c129..1ede5e4 100644
--- a/skills/log/SKILL.md
+++ b/skills/log/SKILL.md
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ You are capturing key points from the current session into a structured log file
 !`ls -1 memory/log/ 2>/dev/null || echo "No log directory yet"`
 
 ### Settings
-!`cat ~/dev/claude/projects/claude-foundations/settings.yaml 2>/dev/null || echo "No settings file found"`
+!`cat settings.yaml 2>/dev/null || cat ../claude-foundations/settings.yaml 2>/dev/null || echo "No settings file found — using defaults: retention_days=7, warn_unreflected_days=14"`
 
 ### Reflection state (to check what has been reflected)
 !`cat .reflection-state.json 2>/dev/null || echo "No reflection state yet"`
diff --git a/skills/reflect-logs/SKILL.md b/skills/reflect-logs/SKILL.md
index 35d6824..1eefc1b 100644
--- a/skills/reflect-logs/SKILL.md
+++ b/skills/reflect-logs/SKILL.md
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ You are processing session logs into structured, topic-based memory files.
 !`ls -1 memory/ 2>/dev/null || echo "No memory directory"`
 
 ### Settings
-!`cat ~/dev/claude/projects/claude-foundations/settings.yaml 2>/dev/null || echo "No settings file found"`
+!`cat settings.yaml 2>/dev/null || cat ../claude-foundations/settings.yaml 2>/dev/null || echo "No settings file found — using defaults: max_logs_per_run=10, retention_days=7, warn_unreflected_days=14"`
 
 ### Recent git log (for staleness detection)
 !`git log --oneline -30 2>/dev/null || echo "Not a git repo"`