Summarization

Summarization is optional. Turn this on when you want your raw notes rewritten into something polished enough to reread months later.

Setup

Add two fields to swelog.json:

{
  "llm": "ollama",
  "llmModel": "llama3.2"
}

See Providers and Models for what each provider expects and how its credential is stored. Until both fields are present, swelog summarize fails and tells you so.

Summaries also read CONTEXT.md, which is where you describe your role, team, systems, and priorities. Nothing else in swelog uses that file.

`swelog log` and `swelog summarize day`

Both take the same flags and both end the day the same way: a file in your daily log folder, and a reset WORK.md. They differ in what lands in the file.

Command	Daily log contents
`swelog log`	Your notes verbatim, under a `# Daily Log - MM-DD-YYYY` heading.
`swelog summarize day`	A generated summary, with your raw notes preserved underneath as `## Original Notes`.

Commands

Command	Behavior
`swelog summarize`	Generate today’s daily log. Alias for `swelog summarize day`.
`swelog summarize day`	Generate today’s daily log and reset `WORK.md`.
`swelog summarize day --keep`	Generate the daily log without resetting `WORK.md`.
`swelog summarize day --force`	Replace an existing daily log for today.
`swelog summarize day --date MM-DD-YYYY`	Write the daily log for the supplied date instead of today.
`swelog summarize day --yesterday`	Write the daily log for yesterday instead of today.
`swelog summarize week`	Summarize available Monday-Friday daily logs for the current week.
`swelog summarize week --week-of MM-DD-YYYY`	Summarize the week beginning on the supplied Monday.
`swelog summarize week --last-week`	Summarize the previous week instead of the current one.
`swelog summarize week --force`	Replace an existing weekly log.

Weekly summaries

swelog summarize week works off whatever daily logs exist, whether swelog log or swelog summarize day wrote them.

Without --week-of, weekly summarization uses the Monday of the week containing today, including when today is that Monday. Some weeks you only work one day, and that day is still worth a weekly log. --last-week goes back one week from that Monday, so running it on a Monday summarizes the week that just finished. That is the flag to reach for when you left on Friday without summarizing the week.

The command skips missing weekday logs but fails when no daily logs exist for the selected week. On a Monday morning, before you have written that day’s daily log, plain swelog summarize week is that case, and --last-week is what you want.

Daily summaries

Daily summarization always reads the current WORK.md. --date only chooses the file the summary is written to, so it is what you use to backfill a missed day. For the day before, --yesterday saves you working out the date. See Backfilling a Missed Day.