create-topic-note

Create topic note

Create a topic note in Nathan's Brain vault that groups related notes under a common theme. Read the vault's AGENTS.md before accessing notes. Synthesize the provided notes into a lightweight hub.

Arguments

$ARGUMENTS should contain:

• Topic title (required) — name for the new topic note
• Notes to group — wikilinks or file paths to notes that share a theme

If no notes are provided, prompt for them. If no title is given but notes are provided, suggest a title based on the notes' common theme.

Process

1. Read the provided notes

Read each note's frontmatter (especially description) and skim content to understand:

• Common themes and concepts
• Shared vocabulary or framing
• The throughline that connects them

2. Expand context (optional)

Use available tools to discover additional relevant notes not explicitly provided:

• Semantic search — When qmd is available (MCP query tool or qmd query CLI), use it for semantic search — vec or expand queries that find notes by meaning rather than keywords. The qmd skill documents query types. For keyword search, use obsidian search or the methods below; qmd's lex/BM25 adds nothing beyond what obsidian already provides.
• Follow wikilinks in the provided notes to find related children or siblings
• Check related properties for existing connections worth including
• Search for shared tags or vocabulary

If you find notes that clearly belong under this topic, propose adding them to the group. Ask the user before including notes they didn't explicitly provide.

3. Create the topic note

Create a new file in 03-Records/Topics/ with this structure:

---
aliases:
  - {alternative names if useful}
icon:
description: "{1-2 sentence summary synthesized from the grouped notes}"
related: []
tags: [index, {relevant topical tags, drawn from the grouped notes}]
---

{Optional 1-2 sentences of context if needed, otherwise leave blank}

![[Related.base]]

Description guidelines