The scratchpad feature gives you a single, always-available note where fleeting thoughts, links, and snippets land without friction. Trigger it from Alfred’s keyword or a global hotkey and your text is appended to the note immediately — Obsidian does not even need to be in the foreground.Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/chrisgrieser/shimmering-obsidian/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
Appending Text with the oo Keyword
Type oo in Alfred to interact with your scratchpad note. There are two modes depending on whether you supply text after the keyword:
Append text
Type
oo followed by your content — for example, oo remember to check the API docs — and press ⏎. The text is appended to the bottom of your scratchpad note (or to a specific section; see below).Open the note
Type
oo with no text and press ⏎ to open the scratchpad note directly in Obsidian, so you can review or edit everything you have captured.Hotkey capture
You can also trigger the scratchpad via a configurable hotkey. When invoked this way, the workflow reads your current macOS text selection and appends it to the scratchpad automatically — no typing required. Assign the hotkey in Alfred Preferences under the Shimmering Obsidian workflow.Section Targeting
By default, content is appended to the end of the scratchpad note. If your note is structured with headings, you can direct new entries to a specific section by appending#heading-name to the scratchpad_path value in the workflow configuration.
For example, setting scratchpad_path to:
Thoughts inside Inbox/Scratchpad.md, rather than at the note’s very end. If the heading is not found, the text falls back to the bottom of the note and a macOS notification tells you what happened.
Configuration
Set thescratchpad_path variable in the workflow configuration to the vault-relative path of the note you want to use as your scratchpad — for example, Inbox/Scratchpad or Daily/Fleeting. The .md extension is optional.
Using Alfred Dynamic Placeholders
Thescratchpad_path value — and especially any prefix text configured for appended entries — supports Alfred Dynamic Placeholders. This lets you stamp each entry with the current date or time automatically.
You can also use a Dynamic Placeholder in scratchpad_path itself to target a daily note — for example, a path like Daily/{date:YYYY-MM-DD} resolves to today’s daily note each time the workflow runs.
Configuration Reference
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
scratchpad_path | Vault-relative path to the scratchpad note (e.g. Inbox/Scratchpad). Supports #heading suffix for section targeting and Alfred Dynamic Placeholders for daily-note paths. |