atomize

name	atomize
description	Turn content into atomic Zettelkasten notes in ~/vault/atomic/ and keep ~/vault/index.md current. THREE modes by who drafts the note — FILE-IT (you wrote the insight, I only file it), DRAFT-IT (I draft one note from your scattered raw material, you edit a line and approve), IMPORT (I bulk-atomize a source you already authored — transcript, export, daily-logs — you elaborate at least one note before it commits). Connections are PROPOSE-then-DECIDE — I suggest [[wikilinks]] with reasons and flag contradictions, you choose which to keep; I never auto-write a link. Use on /atomize, "atomize this", "break this into notes", or to import an export/transcript/article.
license	MIT

atomize

The ingestion frontend for your Knowledge OS. Raw input → atomic notes in ~/vault/atomic/ → connections you approve → ~/vault/index.md kept current.

The principle it encodes (post 1711): «Писать заметки — это и есть думать.» The LLM does the toil — finding, filing, dedup, index upkeep. You stay in the thinking: you write or shape the insight, and you decide what connects to what. Deciding the connection is thinking, not bookkeeping — so connections are always proposed, never auto-written.

Language: mirror the user's language in conversation; write note bodies in whatever language the user thinks/writes in. The structure (frontmatter keys, section headers) stays as below.

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The three modes — a spectrum of who drafts the note

Ask ONE question up front (AskUserQuestion) unless the user already said which mode:

Mode	Input	Who writes the body	The human's act
FILE-IT	a note the user already wrote (one idea, their words)	the user — you do NOT rewrite it	they wrote it
DRAFT-IT	scattered raw material about ONE idea (3 threads, a voice memo, a meeting snippet)	you draft ONE candidate note in their voice	they edit ≥1 sentence before it saves
IMPORT	a long source they already authored (transcript, export, daily-logs) → many notes	you draft each note in their voice	they elaborate ≥1 note before anything commits

The constant across all three: the human always engages (writes, edits, or elaborates), and the human always decides the connections. That is non-negotiable — it is the whole point.

DRAFT-IT is the middle path for the common real case: "I half-said this across three places and want the crisp version." You draft; they engage by editing. (This is the honest compromise with the LLM-Wiki view: let the model draft, but the human must touch it.)

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Procedure

Keep it to one input → propose everything at once → one review round → commit. Do NOT hold a per-note conversation.

1 · INPUT

Get the mode (ask if unknown), the content (pasted text, a file path, or a short description), and the source (self for the user's own insight; otherwise the transcript / export / book / URL it came from).

2 · DRAFT (varies by mode)

• FILE-IT — use the user's note as the body, untouched. One idea per note; if they handed you two ideas, split into two and say so.
• DRAFT-IT — synthesize ONE candidate atomic note from the raw material, in the user's voice: ONE concept, 2-5 sentences, their words (not copy-pasted).
• IMPORT — extract the atomic ideas: ONE concept per note, 2-5 sentences each, rewritten in the user's voice (NOT copy-pasted). A paragraph → 2-5 notes; a transcript → 5-12. Quality over count; don't atomize filler.

3 · PROPOSE CONNECTIONS (all modes — never write links yet)

For each draft note, ls ~/vault/atomic/*.md and grep -ri "<concept keyword>" ~/vault/atomic/ to find related notes by concept, not just keyword. Then assemble a proposal:

• 0-5 candidate [[wikilinks]] per note, each with a one-line why it connects.
• Any candidate contradiction, flagged: [[note-id]] — CONTRADICTS: you argued the opposite here.
• Do not write any link into a file yet. These are candidates for the human to rule on.

4 · REVIEW GATE (one round — this is where the human thinks)

Print all draft notes + all proposed connections in one view, numbered. Then STOP and wait for the user's reply — do not write ANY file or proceed to step 5 until they respond. Use AskUserQuestion (or an unmistakable numbered prompt) so the decision can't be skipped. Then:

• Connections — PROPOSE-then-DECIDE. Ask the user which candidate links to keep, drop, or add, e.g. "keep 1,3; drop 2; add a link from note B to [[X]]." You write only approved links. For kept links, use the user's "why" if they give one; otherwise keep your one-liner.
• DRAFT-IT gate. Show the drafted note and require the user to edit at least one sentence before you save it. If they say "looks good, save it," push back once: "Change one line first — even a word. The edit is the thinking." Then save.
• IMPORT gate (forced elaborate). Do NOT write any files until the user has elaborated at least one note — edited a line, sharpened a claim, or added their own sentence. Say so plainly: "Pick one note and make it sharper or truer in your words — I won't file the batch until you've touched one. That touch is how an import becomes yours." (For big batches, require one elaboration per ~20 notes.)
• FILE-IT. No body gate — they wrote it. Just settle the connections.

5 · WRITE

Get today's date (date +%Y-%m-%d). Number the FIRST new note NNN = (count of existing ~/vault/atomic/YYYY-MM-DD_*.md) + 1, zero-padded (001, 002…), and increment NNN for each subsequent note in the batch so you never overwrite _001. Write to ~/vault/atomic/YYYY-MM-DD_NNN.md using the template below. Write only the connections the user approved.

---
id: YYYY-MM-DD_NNN
title: "[Short label, not a sentence]"
created: YYYY-MM-DD
tags: [tag1, tag2]
source: "[transcript / export / URL — or 'self']"
---

# [Title]

[2-5 sentences, ONE idea, in the user's voice.]

## Connections

- [[related-note-id]] — [why this connects, approved by the user]

## Source

[1-2 lines: where it came from. Skip if source is 'self'.]

6 · UPDATE INDEX

Open ~/vault/index.md. Add each new note under the right topic heading (create the heading if the topic is new). Keep it a clean map of topics → anchor notes. This is the navigation layer the user's identity file @imports.

7 · SUMMARY (print only this — then stop)

Atomized! X notes written · Y connections you approved · index updated.
- YYYY-MM-DD_001: "Title" [tags] → [[linked-note]]
- YYYY-MM-DD_002: "Title" [tags]

If the user rejected all link candidates, that's fine — say "0 connections kept" and move on.

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Guardrails

• One decision round, not a conversation — but never zero. Draft everything, propose everything, take one pass of the user's keep/drop/edit, commit. Speed comes from batching everything into that single checkpoint — NOT from skipping it. The "under 3 min / no chatter" guardrail means no per-note back-and-forth; it does NOT license writing files before the user has approved. If you find yourself asking about each note in turn, you're doing it wrong; if you find yourself writing without asking at all, you're doing it more wrong.
• Never auto-write a connection. Every [[wikilink]] that lands in a file was approved by the user in step 4. This is the rule that keeps the connecting — the deepest part of the thinking — human.
• IMPORT never commits un-touched. The forced-elaborate gate is the difference between a note pile and understanding. An imported note the user never re-read is the LLM's understanding wearing the user's voice. Make them touch one.
• Don't force links. Zero connections is correct for the first handful of notes. Connections compound.

⚠️ An AI-phrased card can fool you into thinking you thought it. You are the easiest person to fool (Feynman). That is why DRAFT-IT and IMPORT both make you touch the note before it saves.

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Where it lives (CC ↔ Codex)

	Claude Code	Codex
Path	.claude/skills/atomize/SKILL.md (or ~/.claude/skills/ global)	Codex skills dir — same SKILL.md standard (agentskills.io)
Invoke	/atomize	/atomize

The same SKILL.md works in both tools — the format is the cross-tool standard.

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Power-user options

• Contradiction-lint pass — after writing, grep the vault for notes that now contradict each other or near-duplicate the new ones; print a report (don't auto-edit), ask what to resolve. (Karpathy's "lint" operation.)
• Semantic connection-finding — if qmd is installed, use qmd query "<note's idea, 2-3 sentences>" -n 10 (the count flag is -n, not --limit) instead of grep in step 3 to surface conceptual neighbors a keyword grep would miss; still PROPOSE, the user still decides.
• Provenance schema — add source_url to frontmatter to link back to the original post (the production-vault schema).