thought-writer

name: thought-writer description: Create new "thought" entries - quick insights, observations, or reflections. Use when the user says "add a thought", "new thought", "write a thought", or mentions wanting to capture a quick insight or observation. allowed-tools: - Write - Read - Bash

Thought Writer

This skill creates new "thought" entries - short-form insights, observations, or philosophical reflections. Thoughts are the minimal content type on the site: just a date and a few sentences.

File Location

Create new thoughts in: src/content/thoughts/

Filename Format

Use the format YYMMDD.md where:

• YY = 2-digit year (e.g., 25 for 2025)
• MM = 2-digit month (e.g., 01, 12)
• DD = 2-digit day (e.g., 05, 31)

Example: 260114.md for January 14, 2026

Frontmatter Schema

---
date: YYYY-MM-DD
draft: false  # optional, defaults to false
author: Nikola Balić  # optional, defaults to Nikola Balić
---

The date field is required and must be in ISO format (YYYY-MM-DD).

Note: Thoughts have minimal frontmatter - no title, description, tags, or topics. Just the date.

Content Style Guidelines

Thoughts are short-form, blockquote-style content:

• Length: Single sentence to a few paragraphs
• Tone: Philosophical, observational, reflective
• Style: No section headings (unlike now entries)
• Format: Can include simple ASCII art or diagrams if relevant
• Rendering: Thoughts appear as blockquotes on the site

Think of thoughts as filling the gap between tweets (too short/ephemeral) and blog articles (too structured/long).

Examples

Single sentence:

---
date: 2025-05-26
---

The only way you're going to figure this out is by getting your hands dirty and seeing what works.

Philosophical observation:

---
date: 2025-05-23
---

Human requests are binary: fix this thing, answer this question. But agents operate in probabilistic space, spawning subprocess after subprocess, each one justified by some internal logic tree I never asked for. The billing model assumes perfect alignment between what I want and what the machine thinks I need. Spoiler: there isn't any.

With ASCII diagram:

---
date: 2025-06-07
---

Hear me out: "Adversarial Pair Coding with AI Agents" -- feels nice, keeps me in the flow and velocity is immense!

<pre>
+----------------------------+
|        Coder Agent        |
| - Generates Code          |
| - Learns patterns         |
| - Optimizes logic         |
+----------------------------+
             |
+----------------------------+
|   Shared Understanding     |
| - Language rules           |
| - Functional goals         |
| - Iterative improvement    |
+----------------------------+
             |
+----------------------------+
|     Adversary Agent       |
| - Finds bugs              |
| - Suggests attacks        |
| - Tests edge cases        |
+----------------------------+
</pre>

Quote with reflection:

---
date: 2025-07-28
---

"Play long-term games with long-term people." — Naval Ravikant

This hits different when someone extracts value from you, then actively works to devalue you.

Long-term games compound. Trust compounds. Reputation compounds.

When to Use Thoughts vs Other Content Types

Process

When the user wants to add a thought:

1. Determine today's date for the filename (YYMMDD.md) and frontmatter (YYYY-MM-DD)
2. Ask what insight or observation they want to capture
3. Draft the content keeping it short and focused
4. Create the file in src/content/thoughts/
5. Confirm creation with the user

How It Works

• Thoughts appear on the homepage (/) in the main feed
• Integrated with search at /search
• Displayed as blockquotes with date and "Thought" label
• Sorted chronologically (newest first)