Promote Thinking to Research

Transforms resolved thinking sessions into clean, formalized research documents.

When to Use

• After a thinking session reaches solid conclusions
• When thinking-partner agent suggests promotion
• Manual invocation via /promote-thinking [session-path]

Arguments

• Optional: Path to specific session file to promote
• If no argument, prompts to select from recent sessions

Workflow

1. Identify Session to Promote

If session path provided as argument:

• Read the specified session file
• Verify it exists and is a valid thinking session

If no argument:

• Glob: ~/obsidian/Thinking/Sessions/*.md
• Sort by modification date (most recent first)
• Show last 5 sessions to user
• Ask user to select which session to promote

2. Parse Session Content

Read the session file and extract:

• Frontmatter (tags, date, topic)
• Core Question section
• Key Insights section
• Open Threads section (note which are checked off vs open)
• Session Notes (for context, not copied to output)

3. Determine Target Research Subdirectory

Analyze session for project hints:

• Check tags for known project names
• Look for mentions in Core Question

List existing Research subdirectories:

ls -1 ~/obsidian/Research/

Ask user: "Which Research subdirectory should this go in?"

• Show existing subdirectories as options
• Include "Create new subdirectory" option
• If creating new, ask for subdirectory name

Subdirectory naming rules:

• Title Case: "Deployment Verification" (not "deployment verification")
• Spaces not hyphens: "API Design" (not "API-Design")
• Max 40 characters
• Check for near-matches before creating new

4. Transform Content

Map thinking session sections to research document:

Thinking Session	Research Document
Core Question	Summary (distilled to answer form)
Key Insights	Key Findings (bullet points)
Checked Open Threads	Conclusions/Decisions
Unchecked Open Threads	Open Questions
Session Notes	NOT copied (process vs outcome)

5. Create Research Document

Path: ~/obsidian/Research/[Subdir]/YYYY-MM-DD-[topic-slug].md

• Use TODAY's date (not session date) - represents when formalized
• Topic slug from session filename

Template:

---
tags: [research, topic-tag]
date: YYYY-MM-DD
source-session: [[Thinking/Sessions/YYYY-MM-DD-thinking-topic]]
---

# [Topic Title]

**Date:** YYYY-MM-DD
**Status:** Formalized from thinking exploration

## Summary

[One paragraph distilling the core question and its answer/resolution]

## Key Findings

- Finding 1
- Finding 2
- Finding 3

## Conclusions

[Decisions or determinations made during exploration - from resolved Open Threads]

## Open Questions

- Remaining questions for future work (from unresolved Open Threads)

---

*Promoted from thinking session: [[Thinking/Sessions/YYYY-MM-DD-thinking-topic]]*

6. Update Thinking Session

Add to the thinking session's frontmatter:

• promoted-to: [[Research/[Subdir]/YYYY-MM-DD-topic]]
• Add promoted to tags if not present

7. Report Results

Output:

• Created research document: [path]
• Updated thinking session with backlink
• Remind: "Run /sync-dashboard to update research dashboard if needed"

Example

Input session: ~/obsidian/Thinking/Sessions/2026-01-18-thinking-api-architecture.md

User selects: Deployment Verification subdirectory

Output:

• Creates: ~/obsidian/Research/Deployment Verification/2026-01-19-api-architecture.md
• Updates session frontmatter with promoted-to link
• Backlinks work in both directions via Obsidian

Error Handling

• If session file not found: Report error, list recent sessions
• If Research directory doesn't exist: Create it
• If target subdirectory doesn't exist: Create it
• If document already exists at target path: Ask user to confirm overwrite or choose new name