obsidian-scripts

A personal task and project management automation system built around Obsidian, Node.js, and macOS tooling. Designed to eliminate the friction of starting a work session — choosing what to work on in under 30 seconds, with no decisions to make under pressure.

Table of contents

• Overview
• Architecture
• Flux A — Home page rotation
• Flux B — Interactive digest
• Phase 4 — Reminders import
• How to use: recommended order of operations
• File reference
• Configuration
• Key technical decisions
• Requirements

---

Overview

The system operates on a single guiding principle: what is not visible does not exist.

Tasks captured throughout the day — in daily notes or in iPhone Reminders — are surfaced automatically at the start of a work session. A short interactive CLI (the "digest") lets you triage them into three buckets: today, soon, or later. The result is written to a home page in Obsidian (🏠 Accueil.md) that shows only what matters right now.

The system is designed around real constraints: unpredictable energy and available time, a tendency for important projects to become invisible behind daily urgencies, and a strong preference for systems that don't add friction to existing note-taking habits.

---

Architecture

The system is split into two independent scripts and one macOS Shortcut.

obsidian-scripts/
├── index.js              # Flux B entry point — interactive digest
├── flux-a.js             # Flux A entry point — home page rotation
├── config.js             # All paths, section names, routing rules
├── run-digest.sh         # Shell wrapper called by the Automator app
├── reminders-inbox.txt   # Temporary buffer for iPhone Reminders (git-ignored)
└── src/
    ├── parser.js         # Reads daily notes and reminders-inbox.txt
    ├── router.js         # Routes items into buckets
    ├── interactive.js    # inquirer-based CLI digest
    ├── accueil.js        # Builds 🏠 Accueil.md content
    └── writer.js         # Writes all output files

Data flow overview

iPhone Reminders ──► Siri Shortcut ──► reminders-inbox.txt ──┐
                                                               │
Daily notes (.md) ──────────────────────────────────────────►─┤
                                                               │
                                                    parser.js  │
                                                               ▼
                                                         router.js
                                                               │
                              ┌──────────────┬────────────────┤
                              ▼              ▼                 ▼
                         auto-routed      accueil           digest
                         (wish lists)   (direct copy)    (interactive)
                                                               │
                                                    interactive.js
                                                               │
                                          ┌────────────────────┤
                                          ▼                    ▼
                                      today/soon            later
                                          │
                                      writer.js
                                          │
                          ┌───────────────┼───────────────┐
                          ▼               ▼               ▼
                    🏠 Accueil.md   daily note      source cleanup

---

Flux A — Home page rotation

Script: flux-a.js Trigger: launchd (scheduled), or manual

Flux A handles the structural content of the home page: the featured project suggestion, the Dataview blocks for active projects, and the "available activities" table. It rotates the featured project name (featuredName) every 3 days and rewrites 🏠 Accueil.md completely.

What it does:

• Reads all project files from the vault and picks a non-IT project to feature
• Preserves the task sections written by Flux B (extractTaskSections() — critical)
• Writes the full home page structure including Dataview queries

Important: the section titles in config.js and flux-a.js must always be kept in sync. If a section title changes in one place, it must change in both.

---

Flux B — Interactive digest

Script: index.js Trigger: Automator app in the Dock (calls run-digest.sh → Hyper terminal)

Flux B is the main daily workflow. It runs in two passes inside the terminal: first you select up to 3 tasks for today, then up to 5 for soon. Everything else goes to later automatically.

Execution steps

[1/6] Parse daily notes
[2/6] Parse Reminders inbox
        └─► inject into daily note (### À la maison - autres)
        └─► update item source to point to daily note
[3/6] Route items into buckets
[4/6] Interactive digest (inquirer CLI)
[5/6] Safety Git commit
[6/6] Write outputs
        ├─► 🏠 Accueil.md
        ├─► wish list files (auto-routed items)
        ├─► daily note source cleanup
        └─► reminders-inbox.txt (cleared)

Item routing logic

Source section	Destination
Voir, Lire, Ecouter	Auto-routed to wish list files by label
À partager	Auto-routed to Partages.md
Contacter	Copied directly to Accueil (no digest)
EN COURS	Copied directly to Accueil (no digest)
All other sections	Interactive digest
Reminders inbox	Injected into daily note → interactive digest

Checked items

Checked items (- [x]) are never shown in the digest. They are removed from their source daily note during the write phase.

Dry-run mode

node index.js --dry-run

In dry-run mode, no files are modified. All planned changes are printed to the console. The Git commit is skipped.

---

Phase 4 — Reminders import

Shortcut: Export Reminders Inbox (macOS Shortcuts app) Buffer file: reminders-inbox.txt

iPhone Reminders captured in the 📥 Inbox list are exported to the local filesystem before the digest runs. The Shortcut handles capture; Node.js handles consumption.

Shortcut flow

[Search Reminders] — list: 📥 Inbox, filter: not completed
        │
        ▼ (if results exist)
[Repeat for each reminder]
   └─► [Run Shell Script] — echo "title" >> reminders-inbox.txt
[End repeat]
[Run Shell Script] — osascript to mark all as completed
[Show notification] — "Rappels importés dans reminders-inbox.txt"
        │
        ▼ (if no results)
[Show notification] — "Aucun rappel à importer"

Why a buffer file instead of direct injection

The Shortcut writes to reminders-inbox.txt in append mode. This means:

• If you forget to run index.js after the Shortcut, reminders accumulate safely
• If you run the Shortcut multiple times, items are never lost (deduplication happens in injectRemindersInDailyNote())
• index.js always clears the buffer after processing, regardless of triage outcome

Reminders lifecycle in Node.js

reminders-inbox.txt
        │
        ▼
injectRemindersInDailyNote()
        ├─► finds today's daily note (or most recent, or creates today's from template)
        ├─► injects items under ### À la maison - autres
        └─► deduplicates — skips items already present
        │
        ▼
item.source updated to point to the daily note filename
        │
        ▼
items enter the digest pool like any other daily note task
        │
        ▼
clearRemindersInbox() — buffer always cleared after run

---

How to use: recommended order of operations

Starting a work session

Step 1 — Export Reminders (optional, on iPhone or Mac) If you have items in 📥 Inbox, run the Export Reminders Inbox Shortcut first. This can be done from iPhone before sitting down, or from Mac. If you skip this step, the digest runs without Reminders — nothing breaks.

Step 2 — Launch the digest Click the Digest app in the Dock (or connect via Jump Desktop and click it remotely). This opens Hyper and runs node index.js automatically.

Step 3 — Triage

• Pass 1: select up to 3 tasks for today
• Pass 2: select up to 5 tasks for soon
• Everything else goes to later automatically

Step 4 — Work Open 🏠 Accueil.md in Obsidian. Your tasks for today are in the first section. Each task links back to its source daily note — click the [[date]] link to open it and check off the task when done.

Running Flux A

Flux A runs automatically via launchd. You can also trigger it manually:

node flux-a.js

Run Flux A manually if you want to immediately rotate the featured project or refresh the home page structure without waiting for the scheduled run.

Testing changes

Always test with dry-run before running in production:

node index.js --dry-run
node flux-a.js --dry-run

---

File reference

File	Role
index.js	Flux B entry point. Orchestrates all steps.
flux-a.js	Flux A entry point. Rotates featured name, rewrites home page.
config.js	Single source of truth for all paths, section names, routing rules.
run-digest.sh	Shell wrapper. Called by the Automator app. Opens Hyper and sends node index.js via keystroke simulation.
reminders-inbox.txt	Temporary buffer. Written by the Siri Shortcut, read and cleared by index.js. Git-ignored.
src/parser.js	Reads all daily notes and reminders-inbox.txt. Returns structured objects.
src/router.js	Routes parsed items into autoRouted, accueil, digest, and done buckets.
src/interactive.js	inquirer v8 CLI. Two-pass selection (today / soon).
src/accueil.js	Builds the full content of 🏠 Accueil.md. Preserves task sections written by Flux B.
src/writer.js	Writes all output files. Handles daily notes, wish lists, Accueil, Reminders injection, and Git commit.

---

Configuration

All paths and routing rules are centralised in config.js. Key values to update before deploying to a new vault:

const VAULT_ROOT = "/Users/xxx/4 - Organisation/obsidian-vault";

const PATHS = {
  vault: VAULT_ROOT,
  dailyNotes: path.join(VAULT_ROOT, "07 NOTES QUOTIDIENNES"),
  accueil: path.join(VAULT_ROOT, "🏠 Accueil.md"),
  // ...
};

const REMINDERS = {
  inboxExportPath: "/Users/xxx/DEV/obsidian-scripts/reminders-inbox.txt",
  listName: "📥 Inbox",
};

Important: the Voir, Lire, Ecouter section name (without accents) was added manually to config.js on the production Mac mini. Preserve it when replacing the config file.

Section name synchronisation

Section titles are defined in config.js under SECTIONS. The extractTaskSections() function in flux-a.js uses the same titles to preserve Flux B output when rewriting the home page. If you rename a section, update both files.

---

Key technical decisions

• inquirer pinned to v8 — v9+ uses ESM, incompatible with the current CommonJS architecture.
• gray-matter date parsing — YAML dates are converted to JS Date objects. parseDate() tests instanceof Date before typeof string. YAML dates must use yyyy-mm-dd format.
• Hyper as terminal target — index.js uses inquirer for interactive selection and cannot run silently in the background. The Automator app simulates keystrokes to send the command to Hyper rather than passing a script as an argument (Hyper interprets path arguments as directories).
• reminders-inbox.txt outside the vault — keeps the temporary buffer out of Obsidian search and Dataview queries, while keeping it versioned with the project code. The file is git-ignored.
• Reminders injected before routing — items from reminders-inbox.txt are written to the daily note before parseAllDailyNotes() processes them, so their source points to the daily note rather than the buffer file. This ensures rewriteAllSourceFiles() can clean them up correctly when they are checked off.

---

Requirements

• Node.js (via nvm — path hardcoded in run-digest.sh, update if Node version changes)
• npm packages: gray-matter, inquirer@8, simple-git
• macOS with Reminders.app and Shortcuts.app (Sequoia 15+)
• Hyper terminal
• Obsidian with Dataview plugin and Homepage plugin
• Jump Desktop (optional, for remote access)