Goals

Goals Review

Check-in and update goal notes across quarterly and monthly levels. Goal reviews only matter if they connect to action — this skill always ends with concrete next steps, not just status updates.

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 — Determine Review Level

If $ARGUMENTS is provided, validate it against quarterly or monthly. If it is missing or anything else, ask via AskUserQuestion:

"Which goals review would you like?"

• Quarterly
• Monthly

Weekly execution and weekly-to-monthly alignment belong to the weekly skill. It owns weekly note creation, lane closure, and next-week preparation, and already loads active monthly and quarterly goals. If the user asks for a weekly goals review, route to weekly instead of continuing here.

Step 2 — Load Context (run in parallel)

# OKR dashboard
obsidian base:query path="2 - Areas/Goals/OKR Dashboard.base" format=json 2>/dev/null

# Active projects (goal alignment check)
obsidian files folder="1 - Projects/" format=json

Step 3 — Level-Specific Workflow

Monthly Review

MONTHLY="2 - Areas/Goals/Monthly/M - $(date +'%B %Y').md"
obsidian read path="$MONTHLY" 2>/dev/null || \
  obsidian create path="$MONTHLY" template="Monthly Goals"

Check quarterly progress: which quarterly objectives is this month advancing? Flag at-risk goals only when source-bound evidence exists: a missed milestone, elapsed due date, explicit blocker, or user-confirmed concern. Otherwise frame it as a question to verify.

Update with: progress status per goal, adjustments, and next month's focus.

Quarterly Review

Read the current quarterly note:

# Note: folder and file use "Quaterly" spelling — preserve exactly.
# Derive Q<N> and YYYY from the review date.
QTR_PATH="2 - Areas/Goals/Quaterly/Quaterly Goals - Q<N> YYYY.md"
obsidian read path="$QTR_PATH" 2>/dev/null

For a mid-quarter check-in: assess progress, flag at-risk objectives only from missed milestones, elapsed due dates, explicit blockers, or user-confirmed concerns, and surface blockers.

For a quarter wrap + new quarter: review previous quarter outcomes (hit / partial / missed), extract learnings, then set new quarterly objectives broken into monthly milestones.

Ask via AskUserQuestion: "Is this a check-in or quarter transition?"

For new quarter setup, create the new quarterly note:

obsidian create path="2 - Areas/Goals/Quaterly/Quaterly Goals - Q<N> YYYY.md" \
  template="Quarterly Goals"

Step 4 — Update the Goal Note

Update the relevant note with:

• Progress status per objective, with source evidence
• Adjustments to goals (if circumstances changed)
• Next actions tied to each objective

The CLI has no patch. If the update can append to the note, use obsidian append. If it must change a specific section, ask the user: MCP obsidian_patch_content (heading-targeted) or read + create ... overwrite. Always show a preview before writing and wait for explicit approval.

Gotchas

• The quarterly folder is Quaterly (not "Quarterly") — this is a known vault typo. Match it exactly or file creation will break.
• Don't create a new quarterly note mid-quarter — read the existing one.
• Don't mark a goal "missed" without asking if it should be adjusted instead. Goals can be refined; they shouldn't just silently fail.