Core ConceptsPrivate Notes

Private Notes

Session notes, research, and personal TODOs that stay private and never get committed.

What Are Private Notes?

Private notes live in docs/notes/ and are gitignored by default. They’re for:

  • Session logs
  • Research results
  • Promotion strategies
  • Personal TODOs
  • Any context that shouldn’t be shared

The .open Convention

Use the .open.md suffix to mark notes that should be loaded by /catchup:

docs/notes/
├── session-2026-02-01.open.md   ← /catchup loads this
├── session-2026-01-30.md        ← closed, ignored
└── research-topic.open.md       ← /catchup loads this

Why filename markers?

  • Simple glob pattern: *.open.md
  • No content parsing needed
  • Visible in file listings
  • Easy to close: just rename

Managing Notes

Create a Note

# Create an open note (will be loaded by /catchup)
touch docs/notes/my-research.open.md

Close a Note

When done with a note, remove the .open suffix:

mv docs/notes/session-2026-02-01.open.md docs/notes/session-2026-02-01.md

Closed notes stay in the folder for reference but won’t be loaded.

How /catchup Uses Notes

  1. Globs for docs/notes/*.open.md
  2. Reads all matching files
  3. Summarizes key points
  4. Includes context in session start

Notes vs Records

AspectPrivate NotesRecords
VisibilityPrivate (gitignored)Public (committed)
PurposePersonal contextTeam documentation
LifespanTemporaryPermanent
Locationdocs/notes/docs/records/

Use Notes for anything you wouldn’t want in version control. Use Records for decisions and designs the team should see.

Setup

The docs/notes/ directory should be in your .gitignore:

# Private notes
docs/notes/

This is added automatically by /init-project.

Related

RecordsWorkflow