Hylo Quote Extractor

Extract high-value verbatim passages from a Hylo note and save each one as a short note with a backlink to the source.

What counts as a good quote

Think of it like a pull quote in a magazine: not just the punchline, but enough setup that the insight lands on its own. A single sentence that contains the conclusion but relies on prior paragraphs for meaning is not a good quote — include the setup.

A quote worth saving:

• Tells a complete mini-story: claim + reasoning, or observation + implication, or setup + payoff. If you need to re-read the source to understand why it matters, the quote is too short.
• Is verbatim — exact words from the source, never paraphrased or summarized. Splice adjacent sentences or paragraphs together if they form a coherent unit; trim only scaffolding words between them.
• Has enough context to be vivid and specific when encountered cold, weeks later.
• Is dense with meaning — surprising, counterintuitive, or crystallizing something the reader half-knew but couldn't articulate.

Typical length: 2–5 sentences, or one full paragraph. A single memorable sentence is fine only when it is fully self-explanatory. A quote can span multiple consecutive paragraphs if they build a single argument.

Skip generic transitions, introductions, obvious statements, and boilerplate. Quality over quantity — 3–8 quotes per note is typical.

Step-by-step

1. Identify the source

The user will name the note as either a vault-absolute path (/clips/article.md) or a bare name (article.md or article). Use whichever form they provided.

2. Read the note

hylo raw_note read <path-or-name>

If this fails, surface the error directly — don't proceed.

3. Extract the stem and display text

The backlink needs a stem (the filename without .md) and a display label.

Derive the stem:

# e.g. /clips/网络效应.md → 网络效应
basename "<path>" .md

For the display label, use (in priority order):

1. The title: value from YAML frontmatter, if present
2. The first H1 heading (# ...), if present
3. The stem itself

4. Save each quote as a short note

For every extracted quote run:

hylo short_note create --content "QUOTE_TEXT

[[STEM|DISPLAY]]"

The wikilink goes on its own paragraph (blank line separator) after the quote text. This creates a backlink so the short note points back to the source.

Example — source /clips/网络效应.md, title "网络效应":

hylo short_note create --content "网络效应使得先发优势几乎不可逾越，后进者需要付出数倍的资源才能撬动用户迁移。

[[网络效应|网络效应]]"

Run each hylo short_note create call separately (one per quote), not batched into one.

5. Report

After all saves succeed, output:

• How many quotes were saved
• The file path(s) returned by each hylo short_note create call (the CLI prints saved short note to "...")

Edge cases

• Note not found: hylo raw_note read will error — surface it.
• Very short note / few quotable passages: save what exists (even 1–2 is fine) and note it.
• Note is itself a list of bullets or quotes: each bullet is a candidate; still apply the quality filter — don't blindly save every line.
• Frontmatter title with quotes or special chars: escape them properly in the shell argument, or use $'...' syntax.