Obsidian + Claude Code: Life Operating System

A boilerplate Obsidian vault powered by Claude Code skills that automatically generates daily recaps, weekly reviews with focus scoring, and interactive planning sessions — all connected to a personal goal hierarchy.

What This Is

This is a complete, working example of using Claude Code as an AI-powered life planning system inside Obsidian. It demonstrates:

• Automated daily recaps that pull from Todoist, GitHub, Linear, and calendar
• Weekly recaps with Focus Scoring that measure whether you're spending time on what matters
• Interactive weekly planning with Big 3 priorities and Todoist triage
• Project management with creation, updating, and archiving workflows
• A goal hierarchy that flows from 10-year vision down to daily tasks

The System

Everything flows from vision to action:

North Star (decade -> year)
  |
Quarterly Focus (quarter)
  |
Weekly Recap + Planning (week)
  |
Daily Recap (day)

The key question the system answers each week: "Am I spending my time on what actually matters?"

• The Focus Score is the mirror
• The Big 3 is the commitment
• The North Star is the compass

Quick Start

1. Clone this repo and open the vault/ folder as an Obsidian vault
2. Install Claude Code — claude.ai/code
3. Customize your North Star — Edit vault/life/system/north-star.md with your values, vision, and goals
4. Set quarterly priorities — Edit vault/life/system/quarterly-focus.md
5. Create your first project — Run /create-project my-project in Claude Code
6. Generate your first recap — Run /daily-recap or /weekly-recap

Optional Integrations

Connect MCP servers in .mcp.json for richer data:

• Todoist — Task management (included by default)
• Google Calendar — Meeting data and capacity planning
• Linear — Engineering issue tracking
• Granola — Meeting transcripts and action items
• GitHub CLI — PR and commit activity

Structure

.
├── CLAUDE.md                    # Instructions for Claude Code
├── .mcp.json                    # MCP server connections
├── .claude/
│   ├── rules/                   # Rules Claude follows
│   │   ├── life-system.md       # Life planning system rules
│   │   ├── projects.md          # Project structure rules
│   │   └── recaps.md            # Recap rules
│   ├── skills/                  # Claude Code skills (slash commands)
│   │   ├── daily-recap/         # /daily-recap — autonomous daily summary
│   │   ├── weekly-recap/        # /weekly-recap — autonomous weekly review + focus score
│   │   ├── weekly-planning/     # /weekly-planning — interactive Big 3 + triage
│   │   ├── create-project/      # /create-project — scaffold new projects
│   │   ├── update-project/      # /update-project — refresh project docs
│   │   ├── archive-project/     # /archive-project — archive completed projects
│   │   └── obsidian-cli/        # /obsidian-cli — Obsidian CLI reference
└── vault/                       # The Obsidian vault
    ├── home.md                  # Dashboard
    ├── templates/               # Note templates
    │   ├── daily-recap.md
    │   └── weekly-recap.md
    ├── life/
    │   ├── system/              # The life planning "OS"
    │   │   ├── north-star.md    # Values, vision, goals (the compass)
    │   │   ├── quarterly-focus.md  # Current priorities (the scorecard)
    │   │   └── how-it-works.md  # System documentation
    │   └── recaps/
    │       ├── daily/           # Daily recap notes (YYYY-MM-DD.md)
    │       └── weekly/          # Weekly recap notes (YYYY-WXX.md)
    └── projects/                # Active projects
        ├── example-project/
        │   └── overview.md
        └── _archived/           # Completed/inactive projects

Skills (Slash Commands)

Skill	Type	What It Does
/daily-recap	Autonomous	Pulls from Todoist, GitHub, Linear, calendar. Writes a structured daily note.
/weekly-recap	Autonomous	Groups work by quarterly priorities. Calculates Focus Score. Calls out misalignment.
/weekly-planning	Interactive	Reads recap + priorities. Helps set Big 3. Triages Todoist. Appends plan to recap.
/create-project	Interactive	Scaffolds Obsidian folder + overview, Todoist project, wires into North Star.
/update-project	Interactive	Refreshes project docs, syncs success criteria, updates Todoist links.
/archive-project	Interactive	Moves project to archived/, cleans up North Star and quarterly-focus references.

Key Concepts

Focus Score

The weekly recap calculates what percentage of your work aligned with quarterly priorities vs. unaligned work. It flags:

• Priorities with zero activity
• "Not Right Now" items that got attention
• IC vs. leadership time balance

Big 3

During weekly planning, you pick 3 priorities for the week. Claude suggests candidates based on overdue items, neglected priorities, and calendar events — but you choose.

Success Criteria vs. Tasks

• Quarterly Focus holds success criteria — milestones and state changes ("Phase 1 shipped")
• Todoist holds tasks — discrete actions with dates ("Write spec draft by Wednesday")
• Rule: if it's completable in one sitting, it's a Todoist task, not a quarterly success criterion

Not Right Now

An explicit exclusion list in quarterly-focus.md. The system flags when work from these areas creeps in. Saying no is as important as saying yes.

Customizing

1. Start with North Star — Your values and vision drive everything else
2. Set quarterly priorities — What matters this quarter? What are you saying no to?
3. Add your integrations — Connect the tools you use via .mcp.json
4. Create projects — Use /create-project to scaffold them properly
5. Run the rhythm — Daily recaps, weekly recaps, weekly planning

The skills are designed to degrade gracefully — if a data source is unavailable, they generate what they can and note what's missing.

Requirements

• Obsidian v1.12+ (for CLI support)
• Claude Code
• Obsidian CLI enabled (Settings -> Command line interface -> Toggle ON)

License

MIT — use this however you want.