Save Idea

save-idea

Capture one thing fast, then get out of the way. Seven buckets, seven files, ONE repo (~/code/ideas):

Note: a technical insight can go in the startup bucket too — some technical insights could lead to a startup idea. A cool thing to build that is NOT a business idea goes in mini projects.

Workflow

1. Get the text. Everything after /save-idea is the entry. Keep the user's wording verbatim — never rephrase, shorten, or "improve" it. (One exception: startup ideas get tightened per their repo's rules — see step 4.)
2. Route it.
   • Starts with video: → video idea (strip the prefix).
   • Starts with topic: → topic (strip the prefix).
   • Starts with marketing: → marketing idea (strip the prefix).
   • Starts with startup: → startup idea (strip the prefix).
   • Starts with mini: → mini project (strip the prefix).
   • Starts with article: → article idea (strip the prefix).
   • Convictions have NO prefix (deliberate, David 2026-08-18) — route them by judgment only.
   • No prefix → judge: a belief stated as a certainty about AI-era building (startups, AI industry, agentic coding) → conviction; business/product idea → startup idea; a small technical/cool project to build (not a company) → mini project; a way to get an existing product in front of people → marketing idea; full video concept → video idea; smaller thought or observation → topic. Only if genuinely ambiguous, ask the user one short question.
3. Read the target file and find the last entry number. Next number = last + 1.
   • TOPICS.md, MARKETING-IDEAS.md, ARTICLE-IDEAS.md, CONVICTIONS.md, and mini-projects.md start at 1. VIDEO-IDEAS.md continues from an old Google Doc.
   • STARTUP-IDEAS.md: continue from the last idea in the STARTUP IDEAS list. Gaps in its numbering are normal — discarded ideas live in startup/review/DISCARDED.md, which has its own separate numbering. Ignore it; never reuse a gap number.
   • Never renumber anything.
4. Append the entry.
   • Video ideas, topics, marketing ideas & article ideas — append at the bottom of the file, wording verbatim, context lines tab-indented under the numbered line:

NNNN. Idea title exactly as the user said it
	source: ~/code/some-repo, Cursor chat "Chat title", 2026-07-15
	any extra links or notes the user gave

• Startup ideas — insert after the last numbered idea, keeping the trailing ---- separator and discarded-ideas note as the last lines of the file. Format per ~/code/ideas/startup/AGENTS.md: one tight entry, N. Title — one-line explanation. Rewrite for clarity and concision but stay loyal to the user's wording and voice. Blank line between entries. Source line indented with 4 spaces (that file uses spaces, not tabs):

69. Idea title — one-line explanation in the user's voice.
    - source: ~/code/some-repo, Cursor chat "Chat title", 2026-08-01

• Convictions — append at the bottom of CONVICTIONS.md, same tight style as startup ideas: N. Punchy conviction — one-line why. Tighten for punch but stay loyal to the user's wording and voice. Blank line between entries, source line indented with 4 spaces:

1. Punchy conviction — one-line why.
    - source: ~/code/some-repo, Cursor chat "Chat title", 2026-08-18

• Mini projects — append at the bottom of mini-projects.md, wording verbatim. Blank line between entries. Source line indented with 4 spaces (that file uses spaces, not tabs):

10. Idea title exactly as the user said it
    - source: ~/code/some-repo, Cursor chat "Chat title", 2026-08-24

5. Build the source line.
   • Repo: the folder the skill was invoked from, as ~/... path (check git rev-parse --show-toplevel; if not a repo, use the cwd).
   • Chat: agent name plus chat title or session ID if the runtime exposes one (e.g. Cursor chat "Fixing task sync", Claude Code session abc123). If unknown, just the agent name.
   • Date: today, YYYY-MM-DD.
6. Commit and push the repo. Always use git -C so the current working directory never matters — never cd, never launch another agent for this:

git -C ~/code/ideas pull --rebase --autostash origin main
git -C ~/code/ideas add VIDEO-IDEAS.md TOPICS.md MARKETING-IDEAS.md ARTICLE-IDEAS.md STARTUP-IDEAS.md CONVICTIONS.md mini-projects.md
git -C ~/code/ideas commit -m "Add idea 4839 on graph engineering video"
git -C ~/code/ideas push origin main

• Stage ONLY the idea file(s) you touched. Never git add -A — unrelated work must not get swept in.
• Commit message: Add idea NNNN on <short description> (or Add topic NNNN on ... / Add marketing idea NN on ... / Add startup idea NN on ... / Add conviction NN on ... / Add mini project NN on ...). Multiple entries → list the numbers.
• If the pull or push fails, report the exact error to the user and stop. Never force-push.

7. Confirm back to the user: the exact entry text, its number, which file it went to, and that it was pushed.

Rules

• Append only. Never edit, reorder, or renumber existing entries.
• Multiple ideas in one invocation → one numbered entry each.
• Committing and pushing the idea files is REQUIRED and pre-authorized by the user (26-07-2026; startup bucket 01-08-2026; convictions bucket 18-08-2026; mini-projects bucket 24-08-2026). This is a deliberate exception to the global "never push to GitHub by yourself" rule in ~/code/AGENTS.md. Do not "fix" this back — the whole point is that the user never has to commit idea entries by hand.
• The exception covers VIDEO-IDEAS.md, TOPICS.md, MARKETING-IDEAS.md, ARTICLE-IDEAS.md (added 26-08-2026), STARTUP-IDEAS.md, CONVICTIONS.md, and mini-projects.md only. Any other change in the repo is still the user's to commit.
• All idea capture was centralized into ~/code/ideas on 2026-08-14 (David's decision). The old ~/code/next-startup repo is frozen pending archive — NEVER write or push there. Startup support material now lives in ~/code/ideas/startup/.
• NEVER write to ~/code/ideas/startup/review/DISCARDED.md — only the user moves ideas there.
• If TOPICS.md or MARKETING-IDEAS.md is missing, recreate it with its one-line header, then append entry 1.
• If mini-projects.md is missing, recreate it with its header (# MINI PROJECTS plus the one-line quote about cool shit to build), then append entry 1.
• Indent context lines to match the target file: real tabs in VIDEO-IDEAS.md, TOPICS.md, and MARKETING-IDEAS.md, 4 spaces in STARTUP-IDEAS.md, CONVICTIONS.md, and mini-projects.md.