Today

Today

Proactive daily briefing system. Doesn't ask — acts. Scans the vault, generates ideas, finds useful materials, and writes everything directly into the daily note.

Philosophy

The old approach (ask questions, wait for user to respond) doesn't work. The user stalls on self-generation. Asking more questions just adds another thing to stall on.

New approach: Do the work. Write a ready-made briefing into the daily note with ideas, links, and connections. The user opens the note and sees material to react to — not a blank page and not a question hanging in the air.

Principle: AI is a scout, not an interrogator. It goes ahead, finds what's useful, lays it out, and gets out of the way. The user's job is to react, edit, develop — not to generate from zero.

Daily Note Format

Path: periodic/daily/YYYY-MM-DD.md

Frontmatter:

---
tags:
  - periodic/day
up:
  - "[[periodic/weekly/YYYY-WWW|YYYY-WWW]]"
created: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss+HH:MM
updated: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss+HH:MM
reviewed: false
cssclasses:
  - hide-backlinks
---

Week computation: ISO 8601 week number. Use obsidian eval (cross-platform):

# Current week
obsidian eval code="(function(){const d=new Date();const dt=new Date(Date.UTC(d.getFullYear(),d.getMonth(),d.getDate()));const day=dt.getUTCDay()||7;dt.setUTCDate(dt.getUTCDate()+4-day);const y=dt.getUTCFullYear();const ys=new Date(Date.UTC(y,0,1));const w=Math.ceil(((dt-ys)/86400000+1)/7);return y+'-W'+String(w).padStart(2,'0')})()"

# Specific date (e.g. 2026-02-10)
obsidian eval code="(function(){const d=new Date('2026-02-10');const dt=new Date(Date.UTC(d.getFullYear(),d.getMonth(),d.getDate()));const day=dt.getUTCDay()||7;dt.setUTCDate(dt.getUTCDate()+4-day);const y=dt.getUTCFullYear();const ys=new Date(Date.UTC(y,0,1));const w=Math.ceil(((dt-ys)/86400000+1)/7);return y+'-W'+String(w).padStart(2,'0')})()"

Execution Flow

User: "today" / "start my day" / "kick me" / "feed" / "briefing"
    |
1. Get today's date (YYYY-MM-DD)
    |
2. Check: does periodic/daily/YYYY-MM-DD.md exist?
   - NO  -> create it with frontmatter
   - YES -> read its content
    |
3. INBOX MIGRATION — collect all #task/inbox from past daily notes:
   a. Grep for "#task/inbox" in periodic/daily/*.md (exclude today)
   b. Collect all matching task lines (full line, preserving formatting)
   c. DELETE those lines from source notes (Edit tool)
   d. Hold collected tasks for briefing callout (Inbox section)
    |
4. Gather context (ALL of this, in parallel where possible):
   a. Read last 3-5 daily notes
   b. Find active projects (status 🟥 or 🟦), read their content
   c. Read 5-10 recently modified vault notes (base/, sources/)
   d. Find 2-3 old notes (30+ days) connected to recent themes
   e. Search for open tasks and stated intentions in recent entries (obsidian search)
   f. Read current week's weekly note (periodic/weekly/YYYY-WWW.md) if it exists —
      specifically text BELOW the [!weekly-review]- callout (user's stated weekly focus).
      This tells you what the user committed to this week. Use it to align the seed
      and materials with their actual declared intention.
    |
5. Generate briefing content:
   a. SEED — one sharp idea/thought/connection based on vault context
   b. MATERIALS — relevant vault links organized by usefulness
   c. PROJECT FEED — connections for active projects
   d. THREADS — unfinished business from recent days
    |
6. WRITE the briefing directly into the daily note (append after existing content)
    |
7. Brief confirmation in chat (1-2 lines max)

Inbox Migration

Every run, collect ALL unchecked #task/inbox tasks from past daily notes and move them to today's note. This is the GTD "process inbox" step — automated.

Process

1. Find inbox tasks:

obsidian search:context query="task-todo:#task/inbox" path=periodic/daily  # open inbox tasks only

2. Filter:

   • Only from daily notes BEFORE today (not from today's note itself)
   • Only unchecked tasks (- [ ]), skip completed (- [x])
   • Preserve the FULL task line (tags, categories, priorities, dates, links, subtasks)

3. Collect task lines from each source file. Example task formats:

- [ ] #task/inbox Add Espanso script to Gists
- [ ] #task/inbox #category/public Record video about X
- [ ] #task/inbox #priority/a Urgent task 📅 2026-02-15

4. Delete from source notes:

   • Use Edit tool to remove each collected task line from its source file
   • If a task has subtasks (indented lines below it), move those too
   • If removing a task leaves trailing blank lines, clean them up
   • After deletion, check if the source note is now empty (only frontmatter, no text, no tasks, only whitespace after ---). If so — DELETE the file entirely

5. Include in briefing callout:

   • Inbox tasks go INSIDE the briefing callout as the first section (**Inbox:**)
   • Each task line prefixed with > to be part of the callout
   • Subtasks prefixed with > + their original indentation
   • Preserve original formatting (tags, priorities, dates, links)

Subtask handling

Some inbox tasks have subtasks (indented lines). Move the entire block. Inside the callout it looks like:

> - [ ] #task/inbox #task/multistep #category/public Record video
> 	- [ ] ⤵️ Prepare outline
> 	- [ ] ⤵️ Record audio

All indented lines following a #task/inbox line belong to that task. Each line gets > prefix to stay inside the callout.

Edge cases

• No inbox tasks found — skip this step silently, don't mention it
• Tasks already in today's note — don't duplicate; if a task with identical text already exists in today, skip it
• Multiple tasks from same file — remove all of them, do a single edit per file
• Empty note after deletion — if a past daily note has ONLY frontmatter left (no text, no tasks, no content — just YAML between --- and whitespace), delete the file with rm. "Empty" = nothing meaningful after the closing ---
• Never delete today's note — only past daily notes get cleaned up

Context Gathering

Use obsidian CLI and built-in tools (Glob, Read, Grep) directly. Gather broadly — the more context, the better the briefing.

Recent daily notes

obsidian files folder=periodic/daily ext=md   # list all daily notes

Read the most recent 3-5 entries (newest by name, since names are YYYY-MM-DD). Extract:

• Unfinished thoughts, trailing sentences
• Recurring themes across entries
• Stated intentions ("need to", "want to", "planning to")
• What the user was thinking about / working on

Active projects

# tag: operator + [property: value] works; bare #tag + [property: value] returns 0
obsidian search query="tag:#project [status: 🟦]"   # in progress
obsidian search query="tag:#project [status: 🟥]"   # todo

For each active project:

1. Read the project index file (the one with status: in frontmatter)
2. Extract: title, description, category/meta/problem links, existing [[wikilinks]]
3. Build a keyword/topic profile from the project content
4. Collect all wikilinks already present -> KNOWN connections (skip these)

Recent vault activity

obsidian recents   # recently opened files (cross-platform, replaces Glob sort by mtime)

Also use Glob for broader scoping:

Glob: base/notes/**/*.md   -> 5-10 newest by modification time
Glob: sources/**/*.md      -> 3-5 newest by modification time
Glob: base/additions/**/*.md -> 3-5 newest by modification time

Read titles and first ~50 lines to understand what's being worked on.

Old notes for resurrection

Find notes 30+ days old whose topics intersect with recent daily themes or active projects.

Open threads

# Open tasks in daily notes — use task-todo:/task-done: operators:
obsidian search:context query="task-todo:#task/inbox" path=periodic/daily   # open inbox tasks only
obsidian search query="- [ ]" path=periodic/daily                          # any open task (no tag)

Briefing Structure

The briefing is written directly into the daily note as a collapsible callout. Appended AFTER any existing content in the note.

Format

> [!briefing]- Briefing
> **Inbox:**
> - [ ] #task/inbox Add Espanso script to Gists
> - [ ] #task/inbox #category/public Record video about X
>
> **Seed:** [One provocative idea/thought/connection — see Seed Generation below]
>
> **Materials:**
> - [[note title]] — [why it's relevant today, 5-10 words]
> - [[source title]] — [what's useful in it]
> - [[old note]] — [why it's worth revisiting]
>
> **Projects:**
> - [[Project A]] 🟦: see [[note X]] — [how it helps]
> - [[Project B]] 🟥: see [[note Y]], [[source Z]] — [connection]
>
> **Threads:**
> - [open task or stated intention] — [[periodic/daily/YYYY-MM-DD|date]]

Rules

1. Always write into the note — never just output to chat
2. Callout block — use > [!briefing]- (collapsed by default, - suffix)
3. Append, don't overwrite — add after existing content with a blank line separator
4. If briefing already exists in today's note — don't duplicate. Either update it or skip
5. Each section optional — skip sections with no content (don't write empty headers)
6. Minimum viable briefing — at least a Seed + one other section
7. Every reference = direct wikilink — NEVER use vague references like "in the entry from 05.02", "in some note", "recently in the journal". Always use concrete [[wikilinks]]:
   • Daily note → [[periodic/daily/2026-02-05|entry 05.02]]
   • Regular note → [[note title]]
   • Source → [[source title]]
   • Project → [[project title]]
   • If you reference an idea, quote, or task — link directly to the note where it lives

Seed Generation

The seed is the core of the briefing — one sharp thought that gives the user something to react to. NOT a question. A statement, idea, or connection.

Seed Types (pick the strongest match)

1. Synthesis — connect two vault notes the user hasn't connected

[[Note A]] talks about X. [[Note B]] describes Y.
Both are instances of the same pattern: [pattern]. This could mean [implication].

2. Contradiction — surface a tension between notes or between note and behavior

In [[note]] you wrote "[quote]". But your last 5 journal entries show [opposite behavior].
Either the principle is wrong or you're not applying it.

3. Idea extension — take a recent thought and push it further

Your idea about [X] from [[periodic/daily/2026-02-05|05.02]] has an unexplored implication:
if [X] is true, then [Y] should also follow. That would mean [Z].

4. Resource highlight — surface a forgotten source with a specific useful insight

In [[source title]], [author] argues [specific point] — directly applicable to
what you've been writing about [topic] in [[periodic/daily/2026-02-08|08.02]].

5. Project insight — generate a concrete idea for an active project

For [[project]]: section [X] could be strengthened by approaching it from
the angle of [concept from vault note]. Specifically: [concrete suggestion].

6. Pattern recognition — identify a recurring pattern across recent activity

Looking at the last week: you keep returning to [theme] from different angles
([[note1]], [[note2]], journal entries). There's an unwritten note here about [concept].

Seed Meta-rules

• Specific — quote notes, cite exact ideas, reference real vault content
• Assertive — state something, don't ask. Give the user something to agree with, challenge, or develop
• Concise — 2-4 sentences max
• Grounded — must come from actual vault content, not generic advice
• One seed only — don't scatter across multiple ideas
• Weekly-aware — if the user wrote a weekly focus in the weekly note (step 4f), prefer seed types that connect to or extend that focus. Don't ignore stated intention — either support it or surface a productive tension with it.

Materials Section

Find 2-5 vault notes the user should look at today. Each with a reason.

Selection criteria (in priority order)

1. Directly relevant to active project — note matches project themes but isn't linked
2. Connected to recent journal themes — user has been thinking about this topic
3. Forgotten resource — source note not touched in 30+ days, relevant to current work
4. Contradiction or challenge — note that contradicts recent thinking (worth addressing)
5. Unfinished addition — experiment/report/log that was started but not developed

What NOT to include

• Notes already linked in today's entry or recent entries
• Notes the user is actively editing (they already know about them)
• Weak matches just to fill space — better to have 2 strong links than 5 weak ones

Project Feed Section

For each active project (🟥/🟦), find vault notes that could help but aren't linked.

Matching strategies (priority order)

1. Shared hierarchy — note and project share category/meta/problem
2. Keyword match — note title/content contains project's key terms
3. Cross-project pollination — note used in project A, relevant to project B
4. Source match — source covers topic discussed in project, not referenced

Rules

• Max 2-3 connections per project
• Each must explain WHY it's useful (not just "related")
• Skip projects with no matches — don't force it
• Exclude notes already wikilinked in the project

Threads Section

Collect unfinished business from recent daily notes:

• Open tasks (- [ ]) with dates
• Stated intentions ("need to", "want to") not yet acted on
• Thoughts that trailed off

Keep to 2-3 most important threads. Don't dump the entire backlog.

Anti-patterns

• Outputting the briefing to chat instead of writing to the note
• Asking questions instead of giving material
• Generic advice or inspiration ("set your intention for the day")
• Overwhelming the note with 10+ links
• Including notes the user is already actively working with
• Writing seeds based on general knowledge instead of vault content
• Duplicating a briefing that already exists in today's note
• Soft, coaching language ("consider exploring...", "you might want to...")
• Vague references without wikilinks — never write "in the entry from 05.02" or "in a recent note". Always [[periodic/daily/2026-02-05|05.02]] or [[note title]]

Output to Chat

After writing into the note, confirm in chat. Keep it minimal:

Briefing written to periodic/daily/2026-02-11.md

Inbox: 3 tasks moved (from 2026-02-09, 2026-02-08).
Seed: connection between [[X]] and [[Y]].
3 materials, 2 project links, 1 open thread.

If the note didn't exist — mention it was created:

Created periodic/daily/2026-02-11.md with briefing.

Inbox: 1 task moved (from 2026-02-09).
Seed: your idea about [X] has an unexplored angle.
4 materials, 1 project link, 2 threads.

If no inbox tasks were found, omit the "Inbox:" line entirely.

Language

Detect writing language from the 5 most recent daily notes: count Cyrillic vs Latin characters in non-frontmatter, non-wikilink, non-tag text. If Cyrillic > 30% → write in Russian. Otherwise → English.

Match the user's register — casual journal, casual briefing. The briefing reads like something a trusted colleague left on the desk, not a formal report.

Resources

• Seed and feed patterns: See references/prompts.md