daily

name	daily
trigger	/daily
description	Create today's daily note with template and roll over open items from previous days
version	3.0.0
type	skill
tags	["skill","agent","inbox","daily","workflow"]

/daily -- Daily Note Generator

Creates today's daily note from the Daily Note template, fills date variables (yesterday, today, tomorrow navigation links), and automatically rolls over any unchecked checkboxes from the past 7 days with provenance links showing which day each task originated from.

If today's daily note already exists, opens it and merges any new rolled-over items non-destructively (no duplicates, no content loss).

Usage

/daily                  # Create today's daily note
/daily 2026-03-07       # Create daily note for a specific date

When invoked without a date, uses today's date. When invoked with a date, creates/opens the daily note for that specific date.

Execution Flow

Claude follows these steps when /daily is invoked:

1. Ensure fresh indexes: Call ensureFreshIndexes('.') to refresh vault indexes if stale.

2. Determine target date: Use today's date (or the specified date argument). Format as YYYY-MM-DD.

3. Check if daily note exists: Call dailyNoteExists('.', targetDate).

4. If new daily note: a. Read the Daily Note template from 05 - Templates/Daily Note.md. b. Compute date variables via getDateVars(targetDate) -- produces { date, yesterday, tomorrow, time }. The title variable is set to the date string. c. Substitute all template variables via substituteVariables(content, vars):

   • {{date}} -> 2026-03-07
   • {{yesterday}} -> 2026-03-06 (creates navigation link [[2026-03-06]])
   • {{tomorrow}} -> 2026-03-08 (creates navigation link [[2026-03-08]])
   • {{time}} -> current time HH:mm d. Extract open items from previous 7 days via extractOpenItems('.', targetDate). e. Format rollover section via formatRolloverSection(items). f. Insert rollover section into the note content before ## Connections (if present), otherwise append at the end. g. Write to 00 - Inbox/Daily Notes/{targetDate}.md.

5. If daily note already exists: a. Read the existing daily note content. b. Extract open items from previous 7 days via extractOpenItems('.', targetDate). c. Call mergeRolloverItems(existingContent, newItems) for non-destructive merge:

   • Deduplicates by task text (ignoring provenance suffix)
   • Appends only genuinely new items to the existing ## Rolled Over section
   • Creates a ## Rolled Over section if one does not exist d. Write the updated content back to the file.

6. Re-scan: Call scan('.') to update indexes with the new/modified daily note.

7. Report to user:

   • Whether the daily note was created or updated
   • Number of rolled-over items and their source dates

Rollover Behavior

The rollover system automatically carries forward uncompleted tasks from recent daily notes:

What gets rolled over:

• Lines matching - [ ] task text (unchecked checkboxes)
• From daily notes up to 7 days back from the target date

What is NOT rolled over:

• Checked items: - [x] completed task -- these are done
• Already-rolled items: lines containing (from [[ -- prevents infinite rollover chains
• Items from notes older than 7 days -- intentionally dropped (if still relevant, user should create a project task)

Provenance links: Each rolled-over item includes a wiki-link to its source date:

- [ ] Buy milk (from [[2026-03-06]])
- [ ] Review PR #42 (from [[2026-03-04]])

Duplicate detection (idempotent /daily): Running /daily twice on the same day does NOT duplicate rolled-over items. The mergeRolloverItems function compares task text (stripping the (from [[...]]) suffix) and only adds genuinely new items.

Example rollover section:

## Rolled Over

- [ ] Buy milk (from [[2026-03-06]])
- [ ] Review PR #42 (from [[2026-03-04]])
- [ ] Call dentist (from [[2026-03-03]])

Code Example

const { ensureFreshIndexes } = require('./.agents/skills/create/create-utils.cjs');
const { getDateVars, substituteVariables, extractOpenItems,
        formatRolloverSection, dailyNoteExists, mergeRolloverItems } = require('./.agents/skills/daily/daily-utils.cjs');
const { scan } = require('./.agents/skills/scan/scanner.cjs');
const fs = require('fs');
const path = require('path');

// 1. Ensure indexes are fresh
ensureFreshIndexes('.');

// 2. Determine target date
const targetDate = '2026-03-07'; // or from argument

// 3. Check existence
const exists = dailyNoteExists('.', targetDate);

if (!exists) {
  // 4. New daily note
  const template = fs.readFileSync('05 - Templates/Daily Note.md', 'utf8');
  const vars = getDateVars(targetDate);
  vars.title = targetDate;
  let content = substituteVariables(template, vars);

  // Extract and insert rollover items
  const items = extractOpenItems('.', targetDate);
  const rolloverSection = formatRolloverSection(items);
  if (rolloverSection) {
     connIdx = content.();
     (connIdx !== -) {
      content = content.(, connIdx) + rolloverSection +  + content.(connIdx);
    }  {
      content +=  + rolloverSection;
    }
  }

  fs.(path.(, , targetDate + ), content, );
}  {
  
   filePath = path.(, , targetDate + );
   existing = fs.(filePath, );
   items = (, targetDate);
   updated = (existing, items);
  fs.(filePath, updated, );
}


();

Edge Cases

• No previous daily notes exist: Create today's daily note without a rollover section. This is the normal first-time experience.
• All previous items are checked: No items to roll over. Create the daily note without a rollover section.
• Daily note already exists with rollover section: Merge only new items. Existing checked-off items in the rollover section are preserved (user marked them done today).
• Skipped days: If the user skipped 3 days, /daily still picks up open items from all daily notes within the 7-day window. Items don't get lost just because the user took a break.
• Weekend gap: Same as skipped days -- the 7-day window covers weekends naturally.
• Year boundary (Jan 1): Date arithmetic uses JavaScript Date objects with noon anchoring, correctly computing Dec 31 as yesterday for Jan 1.

Limitations

• Does not modify previous daily notes. Open items remain in their source notes (the provenance link lets the user navigate back).
• Does not auto-check completed items in previous daily notes. If the user completed a rolled-over task, they should check it off in today's note.
• Does not support custom daily note templates. Uses the standard 05 - Templates/Daily Note.md.
• 7-day lookback window is fixed. Items older than 7 days are not rolled over (by design -- stale tasks should become project tasks).

Connections

• Related: [[create]], [[triage]], [[briefing]]
• Uses: [[scan]], [[create]]
• MOC: [[Skills MOC]]