Zettelclaw

Work inside a Zettelclaw vault using the current typed frontmatter schema, inbox + Base workflows, and human-write/agent-read guardrails. Use when creating, updating, organizing, or searching notes in a Zettelclaw vault, including inbox processing, /ask callouts, and journal scaffolding.

Follow the canonical Zettelclaw vault model: capture externally, write durable notes manually, and use the agent for navigation/synthesis.

This is an instruction-only skill. It does not install software by itself. qmd is optional when it is already available in the environment, and rg is the supported fallback for search.

Vault structure

text

<vault>/
├── 00 Inbox/
├── 01 Notes/
├── 02 Journal/
├── 03 Templates/
├── 04 Attachments/
└── README.md

Note types

Use YAML frontmatter on every note:

• Required on all notes:
  • type
  • tags
  • created
• Required on doc and content notes:
  • status (queued | in-progress | done | archived)
• Optional content metadata:
  • author
  • source

Use these primary types:

• note: durable atomic thinking note; no status
• doc: non-atomic working/reference note; uses status
• journal: daily log note; no status
• content types: article, book, movie, tv, youtube, tweet, podcast, paper (and extensible additional content types); uses status

Templates

Always read the matching template in 03 Templates/ before creating a note:

• note.md
• journal.md
• clipper-capture.json

Use core templates/date syntax. Do not require Templater.

Inbox workflow

• Web captures land in 00 Inbox/ via clipper-capture.json.
• Clipper sets type by URL (tweet, youtube, else article) and status: queued.
• Process inbox captures by keeping/moving, converting into a type: note, or deleting.
• Do not auto-write durable thinking notes from captured content unless explicitly asked.

Bases workflow

• 00 Inbox/inbox.base is the canonical queue view.
• Grouping is by note.type for scan-by-content-type triage.
• Prefer creating/editing .base files over Dataview.

Titles as APIs

A note's title is its interface. Use complete, declarative phrases: "Spaced Repetition Works Because of Retrieval," not "Spaced Repetition." A well-titled note can be linked and understood without opening it. When creating or renaming notes, always prefer a full declarative statement.

Tag conventions

Tags live in the frontmatter tags array, not inline in the body.

• Lowercase, hyphenated: spaced-repetition, not Spaced Repetition or spacedRepetition.
• Topic-oriented, not structural: learning (what it's about), not important (how you feel about it).
• Nest only when a hierarchy is genuinely useful: ai/transformers is fine, deep nesting is not.
• Suggest tags based on the vault's existing taxonomy rather than inventing new ones.

Editing rules

• Preserve existing prose unless user asks to rewrite.
• Do not add or maintain an updated frontmatter field.
• Use dense wikilinking ([[Note Title]]) and allow unresolved links as stubs.
• Do not create top-level folders unless explicitly requested.
• Do not assign/change status, move notes, or delete notes without explicit instruction.
• Agent write surface is limited to:
  • /ask response callouts
  • optional daily briefing callout in journals

Search patterns

Default QMD collections:

• zettelclaw-inbox
• zettelclaw-notes
• zettelclaw-journal
• zettelclaw-attachments

bash

# qmd (preferred when installed)
qmd query "spaced repetition and retrieval" -c zettelclaw-notes
qmd search "status: queued" -c zettelclaw-inbox
qmd vsearch "what have I been learning about memory" -c zettelclaw-notes

# ripgrep fallback
rg -l 'type: note' "01 Notes/"
rg -l 'type: article' "00 Inbox/" "01 Notes/"
rg -l 'status: queued' "00 Inbox/" "01 Notes/"

OpenClaw integration

If configuring OpenClaw memory paths, use:

• agents.defaults.memorySearch.extraPaths

Do not write legacy top-level memorySearch. Only change OpenClaw config when the operator explicitly wants this vault wired into an OpenClaw installation.