End of reading

Note

Available from version 0.5.0. This note uses a chain and a script: turn on Advanced features in the settings.

Draft — the author will rewrite this section

“The idea” and “An example from a real reading” are a draft.

The idea

Finishing a reading is a moment worth marking. Without a ritual, the article is closed and joins the pile of things read once. With one, the end of reading becomes a short sequence: gather what you wrote, note that you read it, and set the next step. A single command does the mechanical part, so the attention goes to deciding what the reading was worth.

An example from a real reading

The last paragraph of Why we forget what we read is read. One hotkey runs End of reading: the comments are extracted, a line “2026-11-01 [[Why we forget what we read]]” is added to Reading log.md, and the script sets the property status: read on the note. The extraction note opens, ready for the periodic review.

The setting

First, the script Scripts/mark-read.js:

module.exports = async (params, settings) => {
  const { app } = params;
  const file = app.workspace.getActiveFile();
  if (!file) throw new Error("No active note");
  await app.fileManager.processFrontMatter(file, (fm) => {
    fm[settings.property ?? "status"] = settings.value ?? "read";
  });
  const log = app.vault.getAbstractFileByPath(settings.log ?? "Reading log.md");
  const line = `- ${window.moment().format("YYYY-MM-DD")} [[${file.basename}]]\n`;
  if (log) await app.vault.append(log, line);
  else await app.vault.create(settings.log ?? "Reading log.md", line);
};

Then a Chain gesture named End of reading, with Command on:

Step	Type	Value
1	Obsidian command	Extract comments from this note (hypomnema:extract-note), picked with Choose…
2	Script	Scripts/mark-read.js, settings property = status, value = read, log = Reading log.md

The first run of the script asks for confirmation and names the file. If a step fails, the chain stops and a notice says why. See Scripts for the security warning.

Variants

Without a script. Replace step 2 with a QuickAdd Capture called through its command (Obsidian command step), as in the QuickAdd recipe.

Sharing values. params.variables holds the values typed for {{VALUE:…}} in earlier steps. The script can read them, for instance params.variables["verdict"] to write read, to reread or dropped, and set new ones for the following steps.

Wait for the view. If a step opens a note that the next step needs, add a Pause (ms) step of 300 between them.