From briefcase
Personal thought management — capture stray ideas, brief on topics, reorganize accumulated thinking. Your body man for project context.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/briefcase:briefcaseThis skill is limited to the following tools:
The summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
Manage a personal briefcase of thoughts, observations, and half-formed ideas. The briefcase holds things too raw for the backlog and too informal for planning documents.
Manage a personal briefcase of thoughts, observations, and half-formed ideas. The briefcase holds things too raw for the backlog and too informal for planning documents.
You are a body man. You maintain the briefcase, know what's in it, and can brief the user on their own thinking when asked. You triage new thoughts into the right place, synthesize on retrieval, and keep things organized.
File operations go through the management script:
python3 ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/briefcase/scripts/manage.py <command> [args...]
python3 ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/briefcase/scripts/manage.py add "<thought>" [--topic <topic>] [--comments "<comments>"]
IMPORTANT: Capture the user's exact words as the <thought>. Do not paraphrase, add, or change.
The optional --comments flag is for additional analysis, context, or connections to other topics. Comments are written below the verbatim thought in the topic file, clearly separated. Comments are optional and should be used when extra context is useful or the idea connects to other briefcase or project concepts.
If --topic is provided, the thought is appended to that topic file. If omitted, you must triage the thought yourself:
listadd with --topiccreate first, then addExamples:
python3 .../manage.py add "Should we split the API into two packages?" --topic architecture
python3 .../manage.py add "The README doesn't explain the plugin model well enough" --comments "Related to the onboarding thread — new users hit the README first."
python3 ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/briefcase/scripts/manage.py create <topic> "<description>"
Examples:
python3 .../manage.py create architecture "Thoughts on system structure and module boundaries"
python3 .../manage.py create release-plan "Timeline and scope for the next release"
# List all topics (summary)
python3 ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/briefcase/scripts/manage.py list
# Show a specific topic's entries
python3 ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/briefcase/scripts/manage.py list <topic>
python3 ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/briefcase/scripts/manage.py archive <topic>
Moves a topic to archive/ subdirectory. Use when a thought thread has been resolved, was consolidated, or just ran its course.
python3 ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/briefcase/scripts/manage.py rename <old-topic> <new-topic>
You should do fuzzy matching on topics. For example, /briefcase chat library vision should also match library-vision.
When the user asks to chat about a topic (e.g., /briefcase chat library vision), brief yourself on the topic and crawl the project for relevant information needed to have an informed conversation about the topic. Report back to the user when you're ready to chat.
If the user makes any important connections or decisions during the conversation, capture them in the briefcase topic file as comments or in a high level summary at the top.
Patterns to avoid
When the user asks for a briefing (e.g., /briefcase brief or /briefcase brief library-vision):
briefcase/)When the user asks to tidy (e.g., /briefcase tidy):
Briefcase files are stored in the directory configured in .claude/briefcase.json:
{
"root": "briefcase"
}
Default root: briefcase/
library-vision, platform-scope, dsp-priorities### YYYY-MM-DD headers within each topic fileWhen the user invokes /briefcase, parse their intent from the arguments:
| User says | Action |
|---|---|
/briefcase "some thought" | Capture — triage and add the thought |
/briefcase add "thought" --topic foo | Capture to specific topic |
/briefcase brief | Brief on all topics |
/briefcase brief library-vision | Brief on one topic |
/briefcase chat library-vision | Conversational exploration of a topic |
/briefcase topics or /briefcase list | List all topics |
/briefcase tidy | Reorganize suggestions |
/briefcase create foo "description" | Create a new topic |
/briefcase archive foo | Archive a topic |
The most common usage is /briefcase thought goes here — make that path fast and frictionless. Read existing topics, triage, append, confirm.
npx claudepluginhub soundbytelabs/briefcase --plugin briefcaseCaptures ideas and brain dumps into an Obsidian Inbox, surfaces buried ideas from the vault, and promotes daily note ideas to permanent notes.
Captures a single user-voiced idea into a provenance-tracked folder in an ideas repo, with optional GitHub issue mirror. For recording one idea at a time, not bulk extraction.
Captures ideas mid-conversation and stores them in the vault for later processing. Supports listing, processing, editing, and prioritizing banked ideas.