dotfiles/scripts/daybook-ensure.py

#!/usr/bin/env python3
"""daybook-ensure — the day's work-log note exists before anyone remembers to want it.

Two previous attempts at this log died inside four weeks (`daily-log/` 4 entries, `sessions/`
3, both Mar-Apr 2026). Neither had a trigger; both depended on someone remembering. This hook
removes the remembering: at every session start the day's note exists, skeleton in place, so
writing into it is an append rather than a decision to begin.

Deliberately narrow:
  - CREATES only. An existing note is never opened for writing, never rewritten, never
    reordered. The prose is the executor's and the hook must not be able to damage it.
  - Says so when it fails. The job this replaces died silently for five months behind a
    `> /dev/null 2>&1` (see the 2026-08-23 daily note). A hook that cannot write must
    announce that, not shrug. Constitutional Constraint #4, at hook scale.
  - Always exits 0. Honest reporting must never cost the steward a session.
"""
import datetime, os, sys

VAULT = os.path.expanduser(
    "~/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~md~obsidian/Documents/David, root-and-branch")
DAILY = os.path.join(VAULT, "01. Daily")
# The steward's own folders and formats, in use since 2025 — 01. Weekly/YYYY-Www.md and
# 02. Monthly/YYYY.MM.md (dots, not dashes). Reused rather than reinvented: the vault already
# holds 2025-W15..W21 and 2025.05, and [[2025-W15]]-style links already resolve against them.
WEEKLY = os.path.join(VAULT, "02. Reviews & Planning", "01. Weekly")
MONTHLY = os.path.join(VAULT, "02. Reviews & Planning", "02. Monthly")


def week_id(day):
    y, w, _ = day.isocalendar()
    return f"{y}-W{w:02d}"


def month_id(day):
    return day.strftime("%Y.%m")

SKELETON = """---
title: "{date} — {dayname}"
type: daily
date: {date}
week: {week}
month: {month}
status: active
tags:
  - daily
  - worklog
---

# {date} — {dayname}

**{nav}**

*A plain-language record of the day's work, so the history is readable without reading `git log`.
Project work sits under its own heading; decisions, insights and open threads are collected at the end.
Corrections are a standing slot, not an occasional one: an empty `## Corrections` on a working day
is itself a claim, and usually a false one.*

## The day in short

## Decisions taken

## Insights and exchanges worth keeping

## Corrections

## Open / next
"""


def note_path(day, daily_dir=DAILY):
    return os.path.join(daily_dir, f"{day.isoformat()}.md")


def ensure(day=None, daily_dir=DAILY):
    """-> (status, path). status in {'exists','created','no-dir','error:<msg>'}.

    'exists' is not a failure and 'created' is not a success worth announcing loudly —
    the caller decides what is worth a line of the steward's attention.
    """
    day = day or datetime.date.today()
    p = note_path(day, daily_dir)
    try:
        if not os.path.isdir(daily_dir):
            return "no-dir", p
        if os.path.exists(p):
            return "exists", p
        # Upward links only. A "tomorrow" link on every note manufactures ~365 unresolved
        # links a year, and an unresolved-link census on 2026-08-23 found 4,799 already —
        # 56% of notes isolated. The week note is created below, so [[week]] always resolves;
        # yesterday is linked only if it actually exists.
        nav = [f"[[{week_id(day)}|Week]]", f"[[{month_id(day)}|Month]]", "[[Daily index]]"]
        prev = day - datetime.timedelta(days=1)
        if os.path.exists(note_path(prev, daily_dir)):
            nav.insert(0, f"[[{prev.isoformat()}|Previous]]")
        body = SKELETON.format(date=day.isoformat(), dayname=day.strftime("%A"),
                               week=week_id(day), month=month_id(day), nav=" · ".join(nav))
        # x-mode: refuse to clobber if something raced us between the check and the write.
        with open(p, "x", encoding="utf-8") as fh:
            fh.write(body)
        return "created", p
    except FileExistsError:
        return "exists", p
    except OSError as e:
        return f"error:{e.__class__.__name__}", p


WEEK_SKELETON = """---
type: weekly
week: {week}
start_date: {start}
status: active
tags:
  - weekly
  - review
---

# Weekly Review — {week}

*Week of {start} to {end}.*

> The daily notes for this week link up to here, so Obsidian's **backlinks** pane below lists
> exactly the days that have one. Nothing is hard-linked downward on purpose: a link to a day that
> never happened is an unresolved link, and the vault already carries thousands of those.

## Work — the week in review

*Written at the end of the week, from the dailies. What moved, what was decided, what is still open.
Plain language, and shorter than the sum of its days — a week's worth of perspective, not a digest.*

## Threads that carried across days

*The point of the weekly view: what appeared on more than one day. A problem that kept returning, a
question that stayed open, an idea that grew. These are invisible from inside a single day.*

## Personal review

*The 2025 weekly practice lived here — intentions, patterns, task migration. Kept as its own
heading; the work rollup above does not displace it.*
"""

MONTH_SKELETON = """---
type: monthly
month: {month}
status: active
tags:
  - monthly
  - review
---

# Monthly Review — {label}

## Work — the month in perspective

*Written from the weeks, not from the days. The question this answers is the one no daily can:
**did the month go anywhere?** Name the two or three things that actually advanced, and what
consumed time without advancing.*

## Threads that carried across weeks

## Personal review
"""


def rollup(day, kind, weekly_dir=None, monthly_dir=None):
    """-> (status, path) for the week or month note. Same create-only contract as the daily."""
    try:
        if kind == "week":
            d, name = (weekly_dir or WEEKLY), week_id(day)
            start = day - datetime.timedelta(days=day.isoweekday() - 1)
            body = WEEK_SKELETON.format(week=name, start=start.isoformat(),
                                        end=(start + datetime.timedelta(days=6)).isoformat())
        else:
            d, name = (monthly_dir or MONTHLY), month_id(day)
            body = MONTH_SKELETON.format(month=name, label=day.strftime("%B %Y"))
        if not os.path.isdir(d):
            return "no-dir", os.path.join(d, name + ".md")
        p = os.path.join(d, name + ".md")
        if os.path.exists(p):
            return "exists", p
        with open(p, "x", encoding="utf-8") as fh:
            fh.write(body)
        return "created", p
    except FileExistsError:
        return "exists", p
    except OSError as e:
        return f"error:{e.__class__.__name__}", os.path.join(d, name + ".md")


def selftest():
    import tempfile, shutil
    ok = fail = 0

    def chk(label, cond):
        nonlocal ok, fail
        print(f"  [{'ok  ' if cond else 'FAIL'}] {label}")
        ok, fail = (ok + (1 if cond else 0), fail + (0 if cond else 1))

    d = tempfile.mkdtemp()
    try:
        day = datetime.date(2026, 8, 23)
        st, p = ensure(day, d)
        chk("creates the note when absent", st == "created" and os.path.exists(p))
        txt = open(p, encoding="utf-8").read()
        chk("skeleton carries the ISO date and weekday", "2026-08-23" in txt and "Sunday" in txt)
        chk("skeleton is spec-conformant (type/status/tags present)",
            "type: daily" in txt and "status: active" in txt and "worklog" in txt)

        # THE control that matters: an existing note must survive untouched.
        open(p, "w", encoding="utf-8").write("PROSE THE EXECUTOR WROTE\n")
        st2, _ = ensure(day, d)
        chk("does NOT overwrite an existing note  [the whole point]",
            st2 == "exists" and open(p, encoding="utf-8").read() == "PROSE THE EXECUTOR WROTE\n")
        chk("reports 'exists' rather than 'created' on the second run", st2 == "exists")

        # --- upward-link controls. The census that motivated them: 4,799 unresolved link
        # targets, 56% of notes isolated. A nav line that manufactures links is the disease.
        day2 = datetime.date(2026, 8, 24)          # the day AFTER one that now exists
        st5, p5 = ensure(day2, d)
        txt2 = open(p5, encoding="utf-8").read()
        chk("links Previous when yesterday's note EXISTS", "[[2026-08-23|Previous]]" in txt2)
        chk("never links tomorrow  [no manufactured unresolved link]", "2026-08-25" not in txt2)
        chk("links up to the week and month, which the hook creates",
            "[[2026-W35|Week]]" in txt2 and "[[2026.08|Month]]" in txt2)
        chk("carries the steward's own week/month frontmatter vocabulary",
            "week: 2026-W35" in txt2 and "month: 2026.08" in txt2)

        d3 = tempfile.mkdtemp()
        st6, p6 = ensure(datetime.date(2026, 9, 1), d3)   # no previous note in a fresh dir
        chk("OMITS Previous when yesterday's note does NOT exist  [negative control — proves"
            " the Previous check reads the disk, not the calendar]",
            "Previous" not in open(p6, encoding="utf-8").read())
        shutil.rmtree(d3, ignore_errors=True)

        # --- rollups: same create-only contract, the steward's own folders and formats
        wd, md = tempfile.mkdtemp(), tempfile.mkdtemp()
        try:
            stw, pw = rollup(day, "week", wd, md)
            chk("creates the weekly note as YYYY-Www.md  [his 2025 format]",
                stw == "created" and os.path.basename(pw) == "2026-W34.md")
            stm, pm = rollup(day, "month", wd, md)
            chk("creates the monthly note as YYYY.MM.md  [dots, as his 2025.05]",
                stm == "created" and os.path.basename(pm) == "2026.08.md")
            wtxt = open(pw, encoding="utf-8").read()
            chk("weekly carries a Work heading AND keeps his personal-review heading",
                "## Work — the week in review" in wtxt and "## Personal review" in wtxt)
            chk("weekly hard-links NO daily notes  [backlinks instead; zero manufactured links]",
                "2026-08-2" not in wtxt.split("start_date")[1].split("## Personal")[0]
                .replace("2026-08-23", "").replace("2026-08-17", ""))
            open(pw, "w", encoding="utf-8").write("STEWARD PROSE\n")
            stw2, _ = rollup(day, "week", wd, md)
            chk("does NOT overwrite an existing weekly note",
                stw2 == "exists" and open(pw, encoding="utf-8").read() == "STEWARD PROSE\n")
        finally:
            shutil.rmtree(wd, ignore_errors=True); shutil.rmtree(md, ignore_errors=True)

        missing = os.path.join(d, "nope")
        st3, _ = ensure(day, missing)
        chk("reports a missing directory instead of creating one  [no silent mkdir]",
            st3 == "no-dir" and not os.path.exists(missing))

        # positive control: the failure path must be reachable, or 'no-dir' proves nothing.
        st4, _ = ensure(day, d)
        chk("the same call succeeds where the directory exists  [positive control — proves"
            " 'no-dir' reports the directory, not a broken function]", st4 == "exists")
    finally:
        shutil.rmtree(d, ignore_errors=True)

    print(f"\n{'SELFTEST PASS' if not fail else 'SELFTEST FAIL'} — {ok} ok, {fail} failed")
    return 0 if not fail else 1


if __name__ == "__main__":
    if "--selftest" in sys.argv:
        sys.exit(selftest())
    made, failed = [], []
    for st, pth in (ensure(), rollup(datetime.date.today(), "week"),
                    rollup(datetime.date.today(), "month")):
        if st == "created":
            made.append(os.path.basename(pth))
        elif st != "exists":
            failed.append(f"{os.path.basename(pth)} ({st})")
    if made:
        print("DAYBOOK — created " + ", ".join(made))
    if failed:
        # Loud on purpose. The predecessor's silence cost five months.
        print("DAYBOOK — COULD NOT WRITE: " + "; ".join(failed))
    sys.exit(0)