create

Create Journal

ROLE: creates and sets up a brand-new .claude/JOURNAL.md. One-time init. NOT FOR: adding entries to an existing journal — use /journal:update.

Init-only. Scaffolds a new .claude/JOURNAL.md and backfills entries from the current conversation.

If .claude/JOURNAL.md already exists, stop and tell the user to use /journal:update instead. Never overwrite.

Steps

1. Check the file does not exist. If it does, refuse and redirect to /journal:update.

2. Scan the current conversation for substantive work units (feature, refactor, bug fix, doc set, design decision). Skip git ops, trivial cleanup, conversational queries.

3. Write the header:

   # Claude Code Journal
   
   This journal tracks substantive work on documents, diagrams, and documentation content.
   
   ---
   

4. Append one entry per work unit, numbered from 1, in chronological order. Use Standard format (50-150 words, see example below).

5. Version tag per entry if the project is versioned (pyproject.toml / package.json / Cargo.toml).

6. Pre-flight install (MANDATORY, no asking):

   python3 -m pip install --user --upgrade stellars-claude-code-plugins 2>&1 | tail -1
   LIB=$(python3 -c "import importlib.metadata as m;print(m.version('stellars-claude-code-plugins'))" 2>/dev/null) || { echo "FATAL: toolkit unavailable"; exit 1; }
   PLUG=$(grep -m1 '"version"' "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/.claude-plugin/plugin.json" 2>/dev/null | cut -d'"' -f4)
   OLDER=$(printf '%s\n%s\n' "$LIB" "$PLUG" | sort -V | head -1)
   [ -n "$PLUG" ] && [ "$LIB" != "$PLUG" ] && [ "$OLDER" = "$LIB" ] && { echo "STALE: library $LIB older than plugin $PLUG - refusing to run on an outdated CLI; re-run the upgrade"; exit 1; }
   echo "toolkit $LIB"
   

   Run the CLI without touching the caller's project. The gate above puts it on PATH, so the bare command name is the whole invocation. uv run instead resolves whatever project the working directory sits in and writes uv.lock and .venv into it, so if you reach for uv pass --no-project (uv run --no-project <cli> ...) - it skips project discovery, leaves the tree untouched and still finds the same PATH binary. --no-sync and --frozen are not substitutes; both still create .venv.