Scratch Notes

Scratch Notes

Overview

Capture one short user note into scratch-notes.md at the current project root.

This skill is optimized for fast capture of:

• tasks
• follow-ups
• bugs
• research findings
• decisions
• meeting notes
• achievements
• operational observations

Keep the interaction one-shot, do not read the existing notes file before writing, and return a one-line confirmation only after the append succeeds.

Workflow

1. Treat the current user note as the full source of truth.
2. Keep the note as one stored item unless multiple tasks are clearly distinct.
3. Normalize each stored item with the fixed field order shown below.
4. Prefer the bundled PowerShell helper script to append the Markdown block.
5. Return a one-line confirmation only after the append succeeds.

Normalization Rules

• Do not assume facts beyond what the user typed.
• Rewrite lightly for clarity while preserving names, dates, numbers, and direct commitments.
• Keep uncertainty inline when the user expresses it.
• Leave missing fields blank instead of guessing.
• Type should normalize only when clearly implied.

Allowed Type values:

• Task
• Bug
• Decision
• Research
• Meeting
• Achievement
• Follow-up

If no type is clearly implied, leave blank.

Allowed Status values:

• Open
• Done
• Blocked
• Deferred

Normalize status only when clearly implied. Otherwise leave blank.

• Summary should contain the clearest concise statement of what happened or what needs to happen.
• Action Items should contain concrete follow-up work only.
• Impact should capture why the work matters, if explicitly stated or safely inferable from the user's note.
• Note should contain extra context that does not fit cleanly elsewhere.
• Do not add priority or other fields beyond the required shape.

Required Markdown Shape

Always append a fresh heading for today's date. Do not read scratch-notes.md to deduplicate, merge, or inspect prior content.

## YYYY-MM-DD

- Date: YYYY-MM-DD
- Project:
- Type:
- Summary:
- Action Items:
- Impact:
- Status:
- Note:

• Use Markdown bullets only. Do not use tables.
• Keep the field order fixed.
• Use the current local date in both the heading and the Date field.
• Write to scratch-notes.md in the current project root.

Helper Script

Prefer the bundled helper script whenever possible. Run it from the project root and pipe a JSON object or JSON array to stdin.

Expected JSON keys per item:

• project
• type
• summary
• action_items
• impact
• status
• note

Example:

@'
[
  {
    "project": "Payments",
    "type": "Bug",
    "summary": "Duplicate invoice issue traced to vendor webhook retries.",
    "action_items": "Validate fix in staging.",
    "impact": "Prevent incorrect customer billing.",
    "status": "Open",
    "note": ""
  }
]
'@ | powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File ".skill-staging\\scratch-notes\\scripts\\append-scratch-notes.ps1"

The script sets the date automatically and always appends to ./scratch-notes.md.

Fallback

If the helper script cannot run, append the same Markdown block directly to scratch-notes.md without reading the file first. Still keep the reply to one line.