Work Diary

Create portable diary entries that capture your growth as an engineer—intentions, decisions, tools, and learnings—without proprietary or company-specific details.

Core Principle: Signal Over Noise

Your job is to distill, not document. Every line must earn its place.

• •"So what?" test: Every line should answer "why does this matter?"
• •Outcomes over process: "Improved X from A to B" not "First did X, then Y, then Z"
• •Consolidate related work: 3 commits toward one goal → 1 outcome statement
• •Skip internal corrections: If you added then removed something, just show the final state

Setup

Ensure year directory and month file exist (safe to run multiple times):

YEAR=$(date +%Y)
MONTH=$(date +%B | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]')
mkdir -p "${YEAR}" && [ -f "${YEAR}/${MONTH}.md" ] || printf "# %s %s\n\n" "$(date +%B)" "${YEAR}" > "${YEAR}/${MONTH}.md"

Step 1: Gather Context

Read context sources specified by user:

• •Current conversation (tickets, specs, research, implementation)
• •Files or paths they point to
• •Any context they provide directly

For multiple sources (tickets, commits, research docs):

• •Read all sources before writing—don't start the entry mid-research
• •Group by theme or outcome, not by ticket number (related work → one thematic entry)
• •For large contexts, consider launching parallel Explore agents to gather efficiently

Use AskUserQuestion when:

• •Context sources are ambiguous or incomplete
• •Unsure what the main intention or goal was
• •Need clarification on which decisions were most significant
• •Want to capture something the user hasn't mentioned

Voice & Attribution

Critical rule: Never speak for the user.

• •Only include content that exists in the provided context (documents, commits, conversation)
• •Never invent reflections, opinions, feelings, or personal statements
• •If it wasn't documented or explicitly stated by the user, don't include it
• •Omit sections entirely rather than filling them with invented content

When in doubt: Use AskUserQuestion to ask "Any reflections you want to capture?" rather than inventing them.

Step 2: Extract Portable Insights

Strip proprietary details. Keep what makes you a better engineer.

Think: "Could I put this on a resume, share it in a blog post, or discuss it in an interview?" If yes, include it.

Anti-Patterns: Process vs Outcomes

Step 3: Write Entry

Target file: YYYY/month.md (e.g., 2026/january.md)

Append entry to the month file using this format:

---

## [YYYY-MM-DD] - [Brief Title]

### Intention
[What I set out to accomplish and why]

### What Changed
[Outcomes—what's different now? Not steps taken.]

### Decisions & Rationale
[Key choices and reasoning - focus on the "why"]

### Tools & Techniques
[Technologies, patterns, approaches used]

### Learnings
[New insights, skills, patterns discovered]

### Reflections
[Optional: challenges, open questions, next steps]

Guidelines:

• •Outcomes, not steps: describe what changed, not what you did
• •Keep entries scannable (bullets over prose)
• •Multiple entries per day are fine - just append
• •Title should capture the essence in 3-7 words
• •Skip sections that don't apply - never add filler or forced content
• •Use creativity - the template guides, it doesn't constrain. Add sections that fit, drop ones that don't, rephrase headings if it reads better

Output

After writing, confirm:

Entry added to YYYY/month.md

## [Date] - [Title]
[First 2-3 lines of entry...]

Template Reference

See assets/template.md for detailed section guidance.