notebook-capture

Prompt file imported from ai-enhanced-engineer/aiee-cortex (.claude/commands/notebook-capture.md). Fill in {{arguments}} before use. Copyright stays with the author.

/notebook-capture

Capture the working session you just had as a dated journal entry in wiki/journal/, and create raw/ metadata cards for any papers or repos the session mentioned. This is the front door of the vault — the capture half of the Karpathy capture → ingest loop.

Writes only to wiki/journal/, raw/papers/, raw/repos/, wiki/_index.md, wiki/_hot.md, and wiki/_log.md. It never compiles sources — that is /notebook-ingest's job.

Scope Gate

!test -f raw/.manifest.json && echo NOTEBOOK_VAULT || echo NOT_NOTEBOOK

If NOT_NOTEBOOK, stop and tell the user: "cd into the notebook vault root before running /notebook-capture". Then confirm wiki/_templates/journal-entry.md exists — if it is missing, stop and report that the vault is incomplete.

Phase 1 — Context

Determine:

• Focus slug — from {{arguments}} if given (kebab-case it); otherwise infer a short kebab-case slug from the dominant theme of the session.
• Date — today, YYYY-MM-DD.
• Repo / branch — if the session worked inside a git repo, capture the branch (git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD) and the repo name. If not, leave both blank.

Read wiki/_hot.md and wiki/_index.md for oracle context (skip silently if either is absent).

Phase 2 — Oracle check

1. Existing entry — look in wiki/journal/ for YYYY-MM-DD-{focus-slug}.md. If one exists, propose updating it or appending a -N suffix (per CLAUDE.md Rule 7). Never silently overwrite.
2. Papers / repos — scan the session for:
   • arxiv.org/abs/<id>, doi.org/<path>, or an explicit paper mention → queue a card at raw/papers/{slug}.md
   • github.com/<owner>/<repo> → queue a card at raw/repos/{owner}-{repo}.md Skip any card that already exists (dedupe by path).
3. Related pages — match concepts, sources, and entities named in the session against existing files in wiki/concepts/, wiki/sources/, wiki/entities/. Collect the resolving wikilinks for the journal frontmatter.

Phase 3 — Compose

Build the journal entry from wiki/_templates/journal-entry.md:

• Frontmatter: title, date, session_focus, repo, branch, related_concepts, related_sources, related_entities, tags, created, updated, status.
• What I Did — 3–6 concrete bullets: actions taken, decisions executed, code shipped.
• What I Decided — key choices with rationale and outcome, first person.
• What's Open — unresolved threads, next-session TODOs.
• Energy / Tone — optional one-liner if the session had a notable arc.
• Links Out — [[wikilinks]] to the related pages and any queued raw cards.

Phase 4 — Review

Show the user a summary table before writing anything:

• Journal file path
• Raw cards to be created (count + paths)
• The _log.md line, _index.md row, and _hot.md update

Offer: Write all (journal + raw cards + index/log/hot) · Journal only (skip raw cards) · Show full journal first · Skip.

Phase 5 — Write (on approval)

1. Journal — Write the composed entry to wiki/journal/YYYY-MM-DD-{focus-slug}.md.
2. Raw cards (only if "Write all") — for each queued paper/repo, Write raw/{papers|repos}/{slug}.md with frontmatter: type, title (paper) or name (repo), url, added: YYYY-MM-DD, cited-by: ["[[journal/YYYY-MM-DD-{focus-slug}]]"], tags. Do not add these to raw/.manifest.json — uncompiled cards stay out of the manifest until /notebook-ingest runs.
3. _log.md — read the actual last line, then Edit to append one line below it (never overwrite, never reorder):

   YYYY-MM-DD | CAPTURE  | [[journal/YYYY-MM-DD-{focus-slug}]] — {one-line summary} (+N papers, +M repos)
   

   The prefix column is space-padded to 8 characters (CAPTURE + one space).
4. _index.md — Edit the Journal table: add a row (replace the _(no entries yet)_ placeholder on first run, otherwise append below the last row).
5. _hot.md — set Last Updated to today and add one bullet under Recent Changes describing the capture.

Phase 6 — Summary

Report: journal path, raw cards created (+N papers, +M repos), and the handoff note:

Run /notebook-ingest --all to compile the new raw cards into source, entity, and concept pages.

Boundary reminders

• Writes ONLY to wiki/journal/, raw/papers/, raw/repos/, wiki/_index.md, wiki/_hot.md, wiki/_log.md.
• NEVER touches wiki/sources/, wiki/entities/, wiki/concepts/ — that is /notebook-ingest territory.
• NEVER modifies an existing raw/ card; only creates new ones on first mention.
• Commits stay manual.