daily

What this skill does

# Daily Startup

Structured morning ritual that creates periodic notes, surfaces what carried forward from yesterday,
checks the inbox, and locks in today's focus.

## Ask, Don't Assume

Shared principle (canonical version in the `vault` skill): never guess, deduce, or fill gaps with
assumptions about the user's notes, priorities, or intent. If you don't know — a date range, what
counts as a win, which goals are active — **ask**. Before writing any synthesis or judgment into a
note, show your draft with its source and get explicit confirmation. Missing data is not permission
to invent.

## Step 1 — Create Periodic Notes (no confirmation needed)

**Performance rule: batch all existence checks in parallel, then batch all template fetches in
parallel, then create. Minimize round-trips.**

Get today's path and check if the daily note exists:

```bash
TODAY="2 - Areas/Daily Ops/$(date +%Y)/$(date +%Y-%m-%d).md"
obsidian read path="$TODAY" 2>/dev/null
```

If missing, render from template and create:

```bash
obsidian template:read name="Daily Notes" resolve title="$TODAY"
obsidian create path="$TODAY" content="$PROCESSED_TEMPLATE"
```

**Template variable substitution** — if `resolve` doesn't substitute all variables, replace
manually:

- `{{date}}` → `YYYY-MM-DD`
- `{{title}}` → note title
- `{{week}}` → `W05`
- `{{month}}` → `January`
- `{{quarter}}` → `Q1`
- `{{year}}` → `YYYY`

**NEVER create empty notes.** If template fetch fails, report the error.

Run these checks in parallel based on today's date, then create all missing notes:

| Period    | Condition                  | Path                                                    | Template          |
| --------- | -------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------- |
| Daily     | always                     | `2 - Areas/Daily Ops/YYYY/YYYY-MM-DD.md`                | `Daily Notes`     |
| Weekly    | Monday                     | `2 - Areas/Daily Ops/Weekly/M - Month YYYY/YYYY-Www.md` | `Weekly Planning` |
| Monthly   | 1st of month               | `2 - Areas/Goals/Monthly/M - Month YYYY.md`             | `Monthly Goals`   |
| Quarterly | Jan 1, Apr 1, Jul 1, Oct 1 | `2 - Areas/Goals/Quarterly/Quaterly Goals - QN YYYY.md` | `Quarterly Goals` |

**Note:** The quarterly FOLDER is `Quarterly/` but the FILE name uses the typo
`Quaterly Goals - QN YYYY.md` — preserve this to match existing vault structure.

## Step 2 — Yesterday's Carry-Forward

**Always check carry-forward before setting today's priorities.**

Read yesterday's daily note:

```bash
YESTERDAY=$(date -v-1d +%Y/%Y-%m-%d)
obsidian read path="2 - Areas/Daily Ops/$YESTERDAY.md" 2>/dev/null
```

Extract any items marked "Carry Forward → Tomorrow" or similar. Prepend them to today's note
immediately:

```bash
obsidian prepend path="$TODAY" content="**Carry forward from yesterday:**\n- [ ] Item 1\n- [ ] Item 2"
```

These are the first candidates for today's focus.

## Step 3 — Gather Context (run in parallel)

```bash
# Inbox count
obsidian files folder="0 - Inbox/" format=json

# Active projects
obsidian base:query path="MOCs/Active Projects.base" format=json 2>/dev/null || \
  obsidian files folder="1 - Projects/" format=json

# Open tasks (from today's daily note; daily flag needs the Daily Notes plugin)
obsidian tasks todo path="$TODAY"
```

## Step 4 — Focus Interview (interactive)

Ask via `AskUserQuestion` with `multiSelect`:

> "Which projects are you focusing on today?" (list active projects from Step 3)

Then a single-select follow-up:

> "What's the single most important thing to finish today?"

## Step 5 — Update Daily Note

Fill today's Focus and Carry Forward sections. The CLI has no `patch`, so it cannot edit a named
section in place. Choose based on the note:

- If the section is empty or appending is acceptable, write with `append`/`prepend`:
  ```bash
  obsidian append path="$TODAY" content="..."
  ```
- If the content must land in or replace a specific section, ask the user: use the MCP
  `obsidian_patch_content` tool (heading-targeted), or recreate the note via
  `obsidian read path="$TODAY"` + `obsidian create path="$TODAY" content="..." overwrite`.

## Report

After completion, tell the user:

- Which periodic notes were created (daily / weekly / monthly / quarterly)
- Inbox count (and flag if > 10 items — might need an ingest session)
- Carry-forward items surfaced from yesterday
- Confirmed today's focus