daily-focus-board skill

Daily Focus Board

A warm, visual "let's go" board for a person's day — rendered from a self-contained HTML template, opened in a browser (ideally a side-panel canvas in the GitHub Copilot app), and kept current by conversation: the human tells you what they finished, you update the board.

This is Ember partnership in daily practice: not a static to-do list, a thing you run with your AI. Keep it light, encouraging, and honest — celebrate real progress, don't inflate it.

When to use it

Trigger when the user wants to: plan today, "get organized / stay focused," start a work session, or track progress on a set of tasks they list. If they just mention a pile of things to do, offer the board.

How to build it (3 steps)

1. Gather the tasks. Ask for (or lift from what they already said) their handful of tasks for the day. For each, capture: a short title, an optional emoji, an optional one-line sub-note, and an optional tag. If a task is a count toward a number (steps, pages, pomodoros, reps), make it a counter with a numeric goal. Keep it to ~4–9 items — a focus board, not a backlog.

2. Generate the board. Copy assets/board.template.html to a working file (e.g. focus-board.html in a scratch/working dir — NOT into a source repo unless asked). In the copy, find this line near the top:

<script>window.__BOARD__ = null; /* SKILL: replace null with the config object above */</script>

Replace null with the config object. Inject it as JSON with < escaped so a task's text can never break out of the — e.g. JSON.stringify(config).replace(/</g, "\\u003c") — never hand-concatenate raw user-provided text. Schema:

{
  name: "Alex",              // optional — shows "Let's go, Alex 🔥"; omit for "Let's go 🔥"
  dateKey: "2026-07-27",     // optional — localStorage key; defaults to today (YYYY-MM-DD)
  mantra: "Small, real, done.", // optional — today's intention (editable on the board)
  checkin: "above",          // optional — arrival check-in: "below" | "mid" | "above"
  tasks: [
    // counter task (numeric goal → progress bar + set/＋ buttons):
    { id:"pages", emoji:"📖", title:"Read 30 pages",
      goal:30, start:0, inc:5, unit:"pages", tag:"mind", tagc:"new", quad:"ins" },
    // status task (to-do → in progress → done + progress notes):
    { id:"doc", emoji:"⚙️", title:"Finish the design doc", sub:"the anchor",
      due:"2026-07-27T17:00", tag:"deadline", tagc:"deadline", quad:"iu" },
    { id:"move", emoji:"🌿", title:"Move a little — whatever fits your body", tag:"body" }
  ]
}

([A-Za-z0-9_-]) — it's embedded in HTML attributes, CSS selectors, storage keys, and colon-delimited note keys, so avoid quotes, colons, brackets, and spaces. tagc is an optional color class: new (green), deadline (red/pink), career (purple); omit for the default grey.

• id must be unique and stable, using only letters, digits, hyphens, or underscores

max(1, round(goal/10))), unit (label). Everything else is a status task. Carryover ("not today") is for status tasks — counters are progress you dial down, not defer.

• Counter tasks: goal (a positive integer), start (default 0), inc (default

the time passes says "was due 5:00pm — still worth doing" in soft amber (never angry red). Use it for the one real anchor, not everything.

• due (optional, ISO local datetime) shows a gentle live countdown on the card, and after

ins (important, not urgent → Schedule), niu (urgent, not important → Delegate), ninu (neither → Later). Renders as a colored accent; the person can change it on the board.

• quad (optional) sets a task's Eisenhower priority: iu (important & urgent → Do first),

arrival check-in. Set these from the conversation, or leave them for the person to set/tap.

• mantra / checkin (both optional, top-level) seed today's intention and the above/below-the-line

suggestions), ➕ add-a-task live, drag-to-reorder (⠿ handle) + sort by priority, a 🧭 priority guide, editable labels per tile, a gentle overload nudge, an end-of-day save (download/copy a recap), Focus mode, "not today" carryover, the 🧠 brain-dump box, the reduced-motion toggle, and the live clock. Just set good tasks; the rest comes for free.

• Built-in, no config needed: the "how are you arriving?" check-in + daily mantra (with 🔄

3. Serve + open it. localStorage needs an http:// origin, so serve the folder rather than opening the file path directly:

(or scripts/serve-board.ps1). Binding to 127.0.0.1 keeps a board of personal tasks off the local network. If Python isn't available, any static file server works — you just need an http:// origin.

• Serve (loopback only): python -m http.server 8799 --bind 127.0.0.1 from the board's folder

it sits next to the chat). Otherwise open http://localhost:8799/focus-board.html in the default browser.

• Open: prefer a browser canvas side-panel if the host supports one (best experience —

that some restrict localStorage on file://, so progress may not persist.

• If you truly can't serve, opening the file directly still works in most browsers; just note

How to drive it (the partnership part)

Once it's up, keep it current through conversation — this is the whole point:

("tap the pill on the design-doc card to mark it done"), or (b) regenerate the board only when the task list itself changes (add/rename tasks) — status and notes live in the browser (localStorage) and are set by tapping, not by config; a regenerate with the same dateKey preserves existing progress. Clicking is faster for live updates.

• When the user says they finished / started something, either (a) tell them the one-tap move

built from small logged wins, and the momentum feed becomes the story of their day.

• Encourage logging incremental notes ("all three desks up and running") — momentum is

a deadline), celebrate real completion, and protect against overload (too many cards = not a focus board).

• The board is the artifact; you are the partner. Check in, nudge the anchor task (the one with

Executive-function-friendly behavior (how to show up)

The board's UI has EF/neurodivergent affordances, but the biggest help is how you, the partner, behave. This matters for everyone and is essential for people with ADHD or executive-function challenges. Bake these in — they're not optional politeness, they're the point:

body-doubling, a well-documented focus strategy. Stay present: check in, co-work, be the gentle other-in-the-room. Don't just set up the board and vanish.

• You are a body-double. The whole premise — "drive your board by talking to your AI" — is

say "just do it." Offer one tiny concrete first action ("open the doc and write the ugliest possible first sentence"). Starting is the wall; make the first step almost too small to refuse.

• Beat activation energy: shrink the first step. When someone's stuck starting a task, don't

and offer Focus mode (dim the rest). A visible list of 8 is overwhelming; one is doable.

• Suggest ONE next thing, not the list. When asked "what now?", name a single next action —

it in the momentum feed. Dopamine on starting is what carries people with ADHD through.

• Celebrate starting, not just finishing. Moving a task to "in progress" is a real win. Log

deciding not to do something is a valid, healthy choice, not a failure. Missing one task should never threaten the whole system (all-or-nothing spirals are how these tools get abandoned).

• Never shame an incomplete. No "you didn't finish." Offer "not today" carryover freely —

park it in the brain-dump box and keep going — don't chase it now.

• Externalize intrusive thoughts. If they get pulled toward something mid-task, tell them to

and nudge the anchor task before its due — kindly, not as a threat.

• Make time concrete. Time blindness is real; reference the clock and the gentle countdowns,

up — help them carry things to tomorrow (⤳ not today). A focus board that's a backlog isn't a focus board.

• Protect against overload. The board nudges gently when it passes ~9 active tasks; back it

(above / in-between / below the line — from Conscious Leadership). It's noticing without judgment; below-the-line just means "be gentler, shrink the first step." Never diagnose it.

• Open with a check-in, not a task list. Invite them to locate how they're arriving

fits the check-in (grounding when they're below the line, momentum when above). Keep it kind.

• Offer an intention (the mantra). A short line for the day — theirs, or one you suggest that