tkstang/oat-idea-scratchpad

Scratchpad

Review your ideas scratchpad or quick-capture a new idea seed.

Progress Indicators (User-Facing)

• Print a phase banner once at start using horizontal separators, e.g.:

  ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ OAT ▸ SCRATCHPAD [project] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

  Replace [project] with [global] when operating at user level.

• Before multi-step work, print step indicators, e.g.:

  • [1/2] Resolving ideas level…
  • [2/2] Reading scratchpad… (review mode) or [2/2] Capturing new idea… (capture mode)

Process

Step 0: Resolve Ideas Level

Determine whether to operate at project level or user (global) level. The scratchpad does not require an active idea.

Resolution order:

1. If $ARGUMENTS contains --global → use user level
2. If .oat/config.local.json has activeIdea pointing to a valid directory → use project level
3. If ~/.oat/config.json has activeIdea pointing to a valid directory → use user level
4. If BOTH .oat/ideas/ AND ~/.oat/ideas/ exist → ask: "Ideas exist at both project and user level. Where should this idea go?" options: "Project (.oat/ideas/)" / "Global (~/.oat/ideas/)"
5. If .oat/ideas/ exists → use project level
6. If ~/.oat/ideas/ exists → use user level
7. Otherwise → ask: "Project-level or global (user-level) ideas?"

Set variables:

| Variable | Project Level | User Level | | ---------------- | ---------------------- | ------------------------ | | IDEAS_ROOT | .oat/ideas | ~/.oat/ideas | | TEMPLATES_ROOT | .oat/templates/ideas | ~/.oat/templates/ideas |

Step 1: Determine Mode

If $ARGUMENTS contains review, go to Step 2. If $ARGUMENTS contains capture, go to Step 3. Otherwise, ask the user: "Would you like to review what's on the scratchpad, or capture a new idea?"

Step 2: Review Mode

1. Read {IDEAS_ROOT}/scratchpad.md
2. If the file does not exist or contains only the template placeholder entry, tell the user: "Scratchpad is empty. Would you like to capture your first idea?" If yes, go to Step 3. Otherwise, stop.
3. Parse entries and display grouped by status:
   • Open ideas (- [ ]): show count and list with summaries and any nested notes
   • Started (- [x]): show count and list (collapsed summary)
4. Offer next actions (suggest to the user — do not auto-invoke):
   • "Capture a new idea" → go to Step 3
   • "Start brainstorming on one" → "Run the oat-idea-new skill with the idea name"
   • "Done" → stop

Step 3: Capture Mode

1. Ask for idea name if not provided in $ARGUMENTS. Validation: slug format only — alphanumeric, dashes, and underscores.

2. Ask for a one-liner summary (required, 1 sentence).

3. Ask: "Any quick notes? (optional — press enter to skip)"

   • If the user provides notes, capture them. Ask "Another note?" until the user declines or provides an empty response.

4. Initialize scratchpad if needed:

   • Create {IDEAS_ROOT}/ directory if it does not exist (mkdir -p)
   • If {IDEAS_ROOT}/scratchpad.md does not exist, copy from template:
     • Source: {TEMPLATES_ROOT}/ideas-scratchpad.md
     • Target: {IDEAS_ROOT}/scratchpad.md
   • If {IDEAS_ROOT}/backlog.md does not exist, copy from template:
     • Source: {TEMPLATES_ROOT}/ideas-backlog.md
     • Target: {IDEAS_ROOT}/backlog.md

5. Append entry to {IDEAS_ROOT}/scratchpad.md under the ## Ideas section:

   - [ ] **{idea-name}** - {one-liner summary} _(YYYY-MM-DD)_
     - {note 1}
     - {note 2}
   

   Include nested bullets only if the user provided notes.

6. Confirm capture:

   Captured "{idea-name}" on the scratchpad.
   
   Scratchpad: {IDEAS_ROOT}/scratchpad.md
   

7. Ask: "Capture another idea, or done for now?"

   • If another → repeat from step 1 of Capture Mode
   • If done → suggest next steps (suggest to the user — do not auto-invoke):
     • "Start brainstorming: run the oat-idea-new skill with the idea name"
     • "Review scratchpad: run the oat-idea-scratchpad skill with review"

Success Criteria

• ✅ Scratchpad reviewed or new entry captured
• ✅ {IDEAS_ROOT}/scratchpad.md exists (initialized from template if first use)
• ✅ New entries use nested-bullet format (name + summary + optional notes)
• ✅ User informed of next steps