pinboard

Pinboard: Quick Project Notes

A digital pinboard for capturing notes, reminders, and ideas during a work session without breaking flow. Notes are saved to PINBOARD.md in the project root.

Adding a Note

When the user drops a note (e.g., "remind me to call Marco about the data", "check out Spina et al 2026 on orphan wells"), do the following:

1. Auto-categorise the note into one of four categories based on content:

   • To-Do — action items, tasks, things to do, people to contact, forms to submit, deadlines
   • Papers — papers to read, articles to follow up on, citations to check, references to find
   • Ideas — hypotheses to test, research ideas, alternative specifications to try, things to think about
   • Data Issues — variables to investigate, data quality concerns, sample construction questions, merge problems to check

2. Add the note silently to PINBOARD.md in the appropriate category section. Include a timestamp. Do not ask for confirmation, category, or priority — just save it and move on.

3. Acknowledge briefly — one short sentence confirming the note was pinned. Do not repeat the note back. Do not ask follow-up questions. Example: "Pinned." or "Added to your pinboard."

Format for each note entry

- [ ] [YYYY-MM-DD] Note text here

Creating PINBOARD.md

If PINBOARD.md does not exist yet, create it with this structure:

# Pinboard

## To-Do

## Papers

## Ideas

## Data Issues

---

## Done

Adding to an existing PINBOARD.md

Append the new note under the correct category heading. Do not reorder or modify existing notes. If the file exists but is missing a category section, add the section.

Reading the Pinboard

When the user says "show my pinboard", "what's on my pinboard", "any notes?", or similar:

1. Read PINBOARD.md
2. Present the contents organised by category
3. Note how many items are in each category
4. Flag any items older than 7 days as potentially stale — these may have been forgotten or are no longer relevant
5. If the pinboard is empty, say so

Stale item format

When presenting, add a note next to old items:

- [ ] [2026-03-15] Call Marco about the merge issue ⚠️ (3 weeks ago)

Marking Items as Done

When the user says "mark X as done", "done with X", "finished X", or "completed X":

1. Find the matching item (match on keywords — it doesn't need to be an exact quote)
2. Move it from its current category to the Done section at the bottom of the file
3. Change - [ ] to - [x] and add the completion date
4. Acknowledge briefly: "Done."

Format for completed items

- [x] [2026-03-15] Call Marco about the merge issue ✓ completed 2026-04-07

If multiple items match the user's description, ask which one they mean before marking done.

Clearing the Pinboard

When the user says "clear my pinboard", "clean up the pinboard", or "archive done items":

• "Clear done items" — remove everything in the Done section
• "Clear everything" — ask for confirmation, then reset the file to the empty template
• "Clear stale items" — move items older than 14 days to Done

Always ask for confirmation before clearing.

Important Rules

• Never modify PINBOARD.md without reading it first — append, don't overwrite
• Keep the format consistent so the file stays human-readable
• This is the user's scratchpad — don't editorialize, reorganise, or "improve" their notes
• If the user's note doesn't clearly fit one category, default to To-Do
• When in doubt about whether something is a pinboard request, it probably is — err on the side of pinning it