# Ticket: Daily YouTube note staging generator

## Metadata
- Type: Ticket
- Status: Done
- Project: YouTube-to-Obsidian Knowledge Capture
- Created: 2026-05-15
- Updated: 2026-05-17
- Priority: Medium

## Goal

Generate curated daily YouTube Markdown notes in server-side staging from captured voice recordings and, later, matched YouTube activity/video metadata.

## Why

The Obsidian vault should eventually receive useful daily YouTube notes, but raw processing logs and machine state should remain outside the vault. A staging generator lets us review the output format safely before Obsidian integration.

## Scope

Included:
- Read ingest records/transcripts from `/var/lib/youtube-capture-ingest/records`.
- Group captures by day.
- Write daily Markdown notes to server-side staging.
- Clearly separate user capture transcript/excerpts from assistant/system-generated placeholders.
- Include sections for future watched-video metadata: title, author/channel, URL, thumbnail, captions, summary.
- Keep raw logs and processing state outside Obsidian.

Not included:
- Writing to the live Obsidian vault.
- Fetching YouTube activity/history.
- Fetching YouTube metadata/captions.
- AI summarization of videos.

## Acceptance Criteria

This ticket is done when:
- [x] Daily notes are generated in server-side staging.
- [x] Notes include captured voice messages grouped by day.
- [x] Notes include placeholders/structure for future matched videos.
- [x] Failed transcription records are represented without breaking generation.
- [x] No live Obsidian vault writes occur.
- [x] Server change log is updated.

## Plan / Next Actions

- [x] Extend ingest script to regenerate daily staging notes after each hourly run.
- [x] Deploy script/config update to the Nextcloud host.
- [x] Run the service manually and verify daily notes.
- [x] Document output path in runbook and change log.

## 2026-05-17 Spec Advancement

Confidence level: high that this ticket is complete.

Decisions now stable:
- Daily notes are staging artifacts, not live vault writes.
- The format should remain flexible until watch-history metadata and Obsidian folder conventions are known.

Refined next milestone:
- Move to done/archive after review; continue enhancements under the broader YouTube workflow and watch-history fallback tickets.

Updated next actions:
- [ ] Move this ticket to `tickets/done/` after review.

## Notes

- This is the safe bridge toward the final daily YouTube note described in the spec.
- YouTube Shorts filtering will be implemented once YouTube activity/video metadata exists.

## Result

Implemented on the Nextcloud host. Daily staging notes are generated under `/var/lib/youtube-capture-ingest/notes-staging/daily/`. Current notes are staging-only and do not write to Obsidian.

## Archive Note

Archived because the YouTube-to-Obsidian project is dead in the water for now. Retained for future reference if requirements change.