What Have We Done Today
Overview
A manual, on-demand daily recap for any Hermes installation. It scans three local surfaces for today's activity — sessions (default profile plus every named profile, all sources), kanban boards (done today, running, blocked, todo/ready), and cron stores (jobs that ran, errored, are running now, or are due today) — then writes a plain append-friendly daily markdown log the user can read to remember what happened and what is still open.
Stdlib Python only. Read-only on all databases (mode=ro); the only write is
the daily markdown file in the recap directory. It is intentionally NOT a
cron job: it runs when a human actually wants the recap (tired, stoned,
context-switch heavy, or closing out the day).
When to Use
- "What have we done today?" / "Recap today" / "What did I get up to today?"
- The user lost track of a busy multi-project day and wants the threads pulled together.
- Before shutting down for the night: capture progress + leftovers.
Counter-triggers — do NOT load this skill when:
- The user asks about a specific past session or topic (use session search).
- The user wants a recurring scheduled recap (this skill is manual-only).
- The user wants to mutate sessions, kanban cards, or cron jobs.
Workflow
- Scan all three surfaces. Invoke through the
terminaltool:python3 ~/.hermes/skills/productivity/what-have-we-done-today/scripts/today_sessions.py --excerptsOutput: sessions grouped by profile (time, source, title, counts, goal/outcome hints), then kanban per board (done today, ▶ running, ✋ blocked, todo/ready counts), then cron (ran today with ❌ on errors, ▶ running now, ⏳ due today after an error). - Separate the signals. User-facing session sources are
desktop,cli,telegram.kanbansessions are worker lanes (generic titles — outcome comes from the excerpt, not the title). Cron ❌/⏳ rows are real breakage candidates;runningexecutions are work happening right now. - Drill where it matters.
session_searchreads only the current profile's DB; use it for ambiguous or high-stakes default-profile sessions. For sessions fromprofiles/*/state.db, the scanner's excerpts are the cheap evidence. - Split Done vs Open. Done = a verified outcome (session excerpt,
kanban done-today card, cron
okrun). Open = kanban ▶/✋/todo cards, cron ❌/⏳ rows, sessions with no resolution. Never infer completion from a session merely existing. - Pull open items (optional).
--ledger FILElists non-completed items from a task ledger JSON:{"items": [{"id", "title", "status", "next_action", "updated_at"}]}. Statuses other thancompleted/cancelledcount as open. - Write the log. Target
$RECAP_DIR/YYYY-MM-DD.md(default~/.hermes/daily-recaps/); create the directory if missing. Create the file with a# YYYY-MM-DDheading if absent; otherwise append a## Daily recap — HH:MMsection with Done / In flight / Needs attention bullets. Re-runs the same day append new sections. - Brief the user. Compact and ranked: ✅ Done today, 🟡 Still open, ⛔
Needs you, Next pick. Include
@session:default/<id>links for anything they might reopen.
Common Pitfalls
~/.hermes/sessions.dbmay be an empty legacy file — the real session store is~/.hermes/state.dbplusprofiles/*/state.db. A scan of the wrong file reports a false quiet day.started_atis epoch seconds; compare against local midnight (the scanner does this in Python). SQLite's'start of day'modifier is UTC midnight and silently drops the first hours of the local day.- Sessions that straddle midnight still count: the filter is
started_atORlast_activity_at≥ local midnight. - Each kanban board is its own DB: root
~/.hermes/kanban.dbholds only the default board; named boards live at~/.hermes/kanban/boards/<slug>/kanban.db(_archived/is skipped). - no_agent cron jobs leave no session at all —
jobs.jsonlast_run_at/last_statusandexecutions.dbare their only trace. A quiet sessions list does not mean a quiet day. - Executions use ISO-text timestamps; sessions use epoch floats. Parse each surface with its own type.
- The recap log is append-friendly by design — never overwrite an existing day file or the earlier recap is destroyed.
- The scanner never writes: every DB opens
mode=rowith a busy timeout, so a live Hermes holding the default DB still scans fine. - Don't install this as a cron — the manual trigger is the design.
Verification Checklist
- Scanner ran with exit code 0 and reported sessions, kanban, and cron.
- The daily log exists and contains a recap section for today:
grep -n "Daily recap" ~/.hermes/daily-recaps/$(date +%F).md - Re-running the scanner returns the same inventory.
- Every open item in the briefing traces to an excerpt, kanban card, or ledger row read during this run.


