save-idea

SkillProductivity

Lets your agent capture ideas into organized markdown backlogs like videos, topics, observations, and startup ideas.

Available today. Use it from your connected AI after setup.

Add ahel to your AI once: Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Claude Code or Codex. Then ask it to use this.

Then ask your AI: use the save-idea skill

About this skill

Save ideas, observations, content topics, projects, and convictions in the ideas repo. Use when the user asks to capture an idea or insight. Adds to idea backlogs, not reminders or tasks.

What this skill tells your AI

The instructions your AI receives, as published by davidondrej/skills in skills/thinking-and-docs/save-idea/SKILL.md and read by ahel’s review.

Capture the entry in the ideas repo, commit, push, and confirm. All paths below are relative to that repo.

1. Capture and Route

Everything after /save-idea is the entry. Multiple ideas get one entry each. Preserve the user's wording verbatim, except startup ideas and convictions, which may be tightened without changing the user's meaning or voice.

Use and strip an explicit prefix. Otherwise choose by the definitions below; ask one short question only if ambiguous.

  • video: → VIDEO-IDEAS.md: a concept for a full video.
  • topic: → TOPICS.md: podcast/content topics, guests, or discussion questions.
  • observation: → OBSERVATIONS.md: personal insights, hypotheses, or assumptions to test, without requiring content intent.
  • marketing: → MARKETING-IDEAS.md: getting an existing product in front of people.
  • startup: → STARTUP-IDEAS.md: a business/product idea or technical insight that could become a startup.
  • mini: → mini-projects.md: a small technical or cool project, not a startup candidate.
  • article: → ARTICLE-IDEAS.md: a topic for the user's daily public articles.
  • No prefix for convictions: use CONVICTIONS.md only for beliefs the user states as certain about AI-era building, startups, the AI industry, or agentic coding.

Tentative beliefs belong in observations. An observation is not a topic merely because it could be discussed on a podcast.

2. Read and Number

Read the target file. Use its last entry number + 1; never reuse gaps, renumber, reorder, or edit existing entries.

  • Video numbering continues from the old Google Doc; do not restart it.
  • Startup numbering follows the last idea in the STARTUP IDEAS list. Ignore the separate discarded-ideas numbering.
  • Other files start at 1 and have independent numbering.

If missing, create TOPICS.md or MARKETING-IDEAS.md with a one-line purpose header; OBSERVATIONS.md with # OBSERVATIONS and Insights, hypotheses, and assumptions to test.; or mini-projects.md with # MINI PROJECTS and > Just cool shit we wanna build — small projects we think would be cool. Then append entry 1.

3. Append with Source

Source format: <repo>, <agent and chat/session>, <YYYY-MM-DD>.

  • Repo: where the skill was invoked, from git rev-parse --show-toplevel, or cwd outside a repo. Use a ~/... path.
  • Chat/session: agent name plus title or session ID if available; otherwise just the agent name.
  • Date: today. Preserve any extra links or notes the user supplied.

Videos, topics, observations, marketing, and articles: append verbatim at the bottom, with real tabs before source and context lines:

N. Idea exactly as the user said it
	source: <repo>, <agent and chat/session>, <date>
	any extra links or notes the user gave

Startups, convictions, and mini projects: indent all source and context lines with four spaces; use - source: and a blank line between entries:

N. Title — one-line explanation.
    - source: <repo>, <agent and chat/session>, <date>
  • Startups: read startup/AGENTS.md. Tighten the entry while keeping the user's voice. Insert after the last numbered idea, before the trailing ---- separator and discarded-ideas note. Preserve the root STARTUP-IDEAS.md symlink to startup/STARTUP-IDEAS.md.
  • Convictions: append N. Punchy conviction — one-line why., tightened but faithful to the user's wording.
  • Mini projects: append N. Idea exactly as the user said it; do not rewrite or add an explanation.

4. Commit and Push

Commit and push captures only when the user has authorized it. This applies only to the listed backlog files, including the startup symlink's target, not other repo changes.

Run Git yourself using git -C; do not change cwd or delegate this step:

git -C <ideas-repo> pull --rebase --autostash <remote> <branch>
# Stage only this capture's files; example:
git -C <ideas-repo> add OBSERVATIONS.md
git -C <ideas-repo> commit -m "Add observation 1 on local agents"
git -C <ideas-repo> push <remote> <branch>
  • Stage only the captured idea files; never git add -A. For the startup symlink, stage startup/STARTUP-IDEAS.md. Keep unrelated staged changes or edits out of the commit.
  • Commit message: Add <entry type> <number> on <short description>. List numbers for multiple entries.
  • If any Git step fails, report the exact error and stop. Never force-push.

5. Confirm

Report the exact saved entry text, number, file, and successful push.

Protected Locations

  • Never write or push to the legacy startup repo. Startup support material belongs in the startup support directory.
  • Never write to the discarded-ideas file; only the user moves ideas there.

Signals

GitHub stars
4k
Forks
598
Last commit
Sep 2026
Advanced
Item type
skill
Key
save-idea
Source
github.com/davidondrej/skills