Chronological tracker for how a specific topic has developed within your personal notes.
Install
mkdir -p .claude/skills/trace-kingjinsight && curl -L -o skill.zip "https://agentskills.codes/api/skills/download/13244" && unzip -o skill.zip -d .claude/skills/trace-kingjinsight && rm skill.zipInstalls to .claude/skills/trace-kingjinsight
Activation
This is the description your AI agent reads to decide when to run this skill — the better it matches your request, the more reliably it fires.
Use when the user runs /trace [topic] or wants to see how an idea evolved over time across the vault. Tracks the arc of thinking on a specific topic.Key capabilities
- →Search for a topic across vault files
- →Extract topic mentions from markdown files
- →Sort matches chronologically
- →Identify the first mention of an idea
- →Trace the evolution of an idea over time
How it works
The skill searches markdown files for the given topic, extracts relevant paragraphs and creation dates, then sorts them chronologically to reconstruct the idea's evolution.
Inputs & outputs
When to use trace
- →Tracing idea evolution
- →Finding related notes
- →Summarizing topic history
About this skill
Trace — Idea Evolution Tracker
Show how a specific idea or topic has evolved across King's vault over time.
Input
The user provides a topic after the command: /trace [topic]
If no topic given, ask: "What idea do you want to trace?"
Process
-
Search broadly — grep all
.mdfiles in the vault for the topic (and synonyms/related terms)grep -ril "[topic]" ~/Documents/Obsidian/personalOS/ --include="*.md" -
Collect matches — read each matching file, extract:
- The file path and folder (tells you context: daily note vs knowledge vs project)
- The frontmatter
dateorcreatedfield - The surrounding paragraph(s) where the topic appears
-
Sort chronologically — by
date/createdfrontmatter, or by filename for daily notes (YYYY-MM-DD.md) -
Trace the arc — look for:
- First mention: what was the original framing?
- How did the language/framing shift over time?
- What other concepts got linked to it?
- Where does it sit now — active project, knowledge note, daily thought?
Output Format
Tracing: [topic] Found in [N] notes across [date range]
First appearance — [date], [file]
[quote or paraphrase]
Evolution
- [date] — [file type] — [how the idea shifted]
- [date] — [file type] — [new angle or connection]
- ...
Current state — [where it lives now, how it's framed]
Connected to
- [[note]] — [why it's connected]
Observation — [one insight about how this idea has grown or changed]
Rules
- Pull direct quotes where possible — King's own words, not summaries
- Chinese content in daily notes: include it, translate inline
- If topic appears in only 1-2 notes, say so — the trace may be short
- Don't force connections that aren't there
When not to use it
- →When not tracing the evolution of an idea
- →When not searching for a topic across the vault
- →When not needing to see how an idea evolved over time
Limitations
- →If topic appears in only 1-2 notes, the trace may be short
- →Does not force connections that are not present in the notes
- →Requires markdown files with date or created frontmatter for accurate sorting
How it compares
This skill provides a structured chronological trace of an idea's development across a knowledge vault, unlike a simple keyword search.
Compared to similar skills
trace side by side with the closest alternatives in the catalog.
| Skill | Installs | Updated | Safety | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| trace (this skill) | 0 | 3mo | Review | Beginner |
| qmd | 26 | 2mo | Review | Intermediate |
| deep-reading-analyst | 1 | 9mo | No flags | Beginner |
| knowledge-base | 1 | 6mo | Review | Beginner |
Try saying
Example prompts that trigger this skill in your AI assistant.
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