ideas

name	ideas
description	Idea capture and promotion for Obsidian: quick thoughts land in Inbox, conversation idea clusters are reviewed before writing, and daily-note ideas can be promoted to permanent notes. Use when the user asks to capture an idea, brain dump, write down a thought, find buried ideas, or graduate ideas from daily notes.
user-invocable	true

Ideas Capture

Get ideas out of your head and into the vault immediately. Low friction is the whole point — capture first, organize later. The Inbox is the landing zone.

Quick Capture (single idea)

Write to inbox immediately, no questions:

obsidian create path="0 - Inbox/idea-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M).md" content="..."

Frontmatter to add:

---
type: idea
captured: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM
context: <project name or topic, if obvious>
tags: [idea]
---

After capturing, ask ONE optional follow-up:

"This looks like a [project / area / resource] idea — want a full project note now, or just inbox for later?"

Only ask if the answer isn't already obvious. If they say "just capture it", stop there.

Idea Extraction from Conversation

When the conversation contains multiple ideas scattered through the discussion:

1. Identify all distinct ideas — don't lump unrelated things together
2. Group related ideas into clusters (same problem space, same project, same technology)
3. Write one note per cluster — related ideas together, unrelated ideas separately

# One note per distinct cluster
obsidian create path="0 - Inbox/idea-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M)-<slug>.md" content="..."

Present the clusters to the user before writing, in case grouping is wrong. Write only after the user confirms which clusters to save and which to discard.

When to Suggest a Project Note Instead

If the idea clearly has:

• A concrete outcome ("build X", "ship Y", "learn Z")
• An implicit deadline or urgency

...ask: "This sounds like more than an idea — want me to set up a project note in 1 - Projects/?" Then hand off to the project skill if yes.

Naming Convention

• Single idea: idea-YYYYMMDD-HHMM.md
• Named idea: idea-YYYYMMDD-HHMM-<short-slug>.md
• Extracted cluster: idea-YYYYMMDD-HHMM-<topic>.md

Keep slugs short (2–3 words max). The timestamp is the primary identifier.

Promote Mode

When the user wants to promote ideas from daily notes or buried vault notes, load references/promote-mode.md. The approval gate stays the same: present candidates before writing, then create, enrich, or backlink only the ideas the user selects.

References

Priority	Load when	Reference
1	Graduating ideas from daily notes or buried vault notes into permanent notes	references/promote-mode.md