| name | journaling |
| description | Use at session end, after completing or abandoning any task, or when an approach fails — record what happened in docs/journal/ so no future session re-investigates it. |
| version | 4 |
Journaling
One file per entry: docs/journal/YYYY-MM-DD-<short-slug>.md. English, regardless of the
user's language. Write for a stranger: a future session with zero memory of today.
Entry format
Frontmatter:
---
title: <one line>
date: YYYY-MM-DD
tags: [tag, tag] # only tags from docs/TAGS.md — new tag = add it there, same commit
summary: <one sentence>
outcome: done | partial | failed | abandoned
---
Body sections, in order:
- What was asked — the user's request in one or two sentences.
- What I did — the actual changes, with file paths and commit subjects.
- What I tried that didn't work — and why — MANDATORY. With evidence: exact commands
run, error messages seen, numbers measured. "It didn't work" without evidence is not an
entry. If nothing failed, write "Nothing failed."
- Decisions made — each with its why.
- Follow-ups — what a next session should pick up, if anything.
Index — not optional
Add one line to docs/journal/INDEX.md under ## Entries, newest first (replacing the
_(none yet)_ placeholder if it is still there):
- YYYY-MM-DD — [title](YYYY-MM-DD-slug.md) — outcome — tags — summary
An entry that is not in the index is a bug. Include the index line in the same commit as
the entry.
When exactly
- At session end (always — but scaled: a ten-minute change earns three honest lines,
"nothing failed" is a complete answer to the failures section, and one index line is
the whole obligation. Long entries are for long or surprising work.)
- Immediately after abandoning an approach, while the evidence is still in context.
- After anything surprising: a wrong assumption, a tool quirk, a decision reversal.
