What is the CODE process for organizing notes?

CODE is the four-phase method this skill runs: Capture, Organize, Distill, Execute. Capture converts your raw notes into clean text files. Organize turns each note into a structured card with lessons and speakers. Distill finds the recurring through-lines across the whole collection. Execute puts the finished library to work as a Claude Project, a content engine, or a searchable database.

What is a through-line in a knowledge library?

A through-line is one of the 7 to 12 recurring philosophies that run across your entire collection of notes, regardless of which book, course, or mentor each note came from. The skill names each through-line in the language of the world your notes came from rather than a textbook category, and maps its strongest lessons and a single anchor quote to it. The through-lines are the permanent content architecture everything else gets built on.

What kinds of notes can this skill process?

Any coherent body of notes in Evernote HTML export, Notion markdown export, plain text, or markdown files. It shines on notes from conferences, coaching programs, masterminds, books, courses, and mentors. You want a minimum of about 20 notes for the through-lines to surface, and the sweet spot is 50 to 200.

Knowledge Library Claude Skill: Turn Notes Into Gold

01 / GET THE SKILL

Copy This. Give It To Your Claude.

You have captured years of notes across apps, programs, and notebooks. Most of it sits where you will never read it again. This skill runs the CODE process on that pile and hands back a structured library you can search, query, and turn into content. Copy the two blocks below and give them to your Claude.

Step 1. Copy the skill block below.

Step 2. Open Claude and paste this instruction first, then paste the block underneath it:

Paste into Claude first

Turn the block below into a Claude skill and install it. Create the skill file exactly as written. Then personalize it with smart defaults from what you know about me: my business, my voice, my current priorities, and where I keep my work. Confirm when it is installed and tell me how to run it.

The Skill · give this to Claude

---
name: knowledge-library-extraction
description: Extract, organize, and distill a personal knowledge library from raw notes into structured intelligence with through-lines. Use this skill whenever you say "extract my library," "process my notes," "run the extraction," "build a codex," "distill my notes," "organize my second brain," "run CODE on my notes," or any variation of wanting to turn a large collection of personal notes into organized, categorized, searchable wisdom. Also trigger when you have a folder of notes from conferences, coaching programs, books, courses, or mentors and want to find the patterns, through-lines, and best insights across all of them. This is the bridge between a messy second brain and a structured intelligence asset.
---

# Knowledge Library Extraction

Turn a raw collection of personal notes into a structured intelligence library with through-lines, attributed lessons, and searchable wisdom.

## What This Produces

From raw notes (Evernote, Notion, markdown, text files), this process produces:

1. **Clean text files**, one per note, stripped of formatting, with title and date preserved
2. **Structured JSON cards**, one per note, with lessons extracted, speakers attributed, personal reflections separated, and a top quote identified
3. **Through-lines**, the 7-12 recurring philosophies that run across the entire collection, with anchor quotes and top lessons per theme
4. **A through-lines report**, a human-readable document showing the patterns, with an observations section that surfaces what a human reading linearly would never see

## When to Use This

- Processing notes from coaching programs, conferences, masterminds, or courses
- Organizing a personal knowledge management library (second brain)
- Preparing content for a Codex-style artifact or interactive experience
- Building a Claude Project knowledge base from personal notes
- Finding patterns across years of learning from mentors, speakers, or thought leaders
- Creating a searchable, categorized wisdom library from unstructured notes

## Prerequisites

- A collection of notes in one of these formats: Evernote export (HTML), Notion export (markdown), plain text files, or markdown files
- Notes should represent a coherent body of knowledge (one mentor's world, one topic area, one program series, etc.)
- Minimum ~20 notes for meaningful through-line discovery. Sweet spot is 50-200.

## The Process: CODE

**C**apture → **O**rganize → **D**istill → **E**xecute

---

### Phase 1: CAPTURE (Export and Convert)

**Goal:** Get all notes into clean, uniform text files.

**Input:** Raw notes in their native format
**Output:** A folder of clean .txt files, one per note

#### Step 1.1: Export from source

**From Evernote:**
- Select all notes → File → Export
- Choose "Multiple Web Pages (.html)"
- Export Note Attributes: keep only Note Title, Created Date, Tags
- Deselect: Author, Note Reminders, Source URL, Tasks, Updated Date, Thumbnail
- Why: Each attribute adds HTML clutter. Title, date, and tags are the only metadata we need.

**From Notion:**
- Select pages → Export → Markdown & CSV
- Choose "Everything" for content
- Include subpages if applicable

**From other sources:**
- Get files into .txt or .md format, one file per note
- Ensure each file has a clear title (filename or first line)

#### Step 1.2: Batch convert to clean text

Run this in Claude Code. The prompt below is calibrated for Evernote HTML exports. Adjust the input parsing for other formats.

**Claude Code Prompt:**
```
Convert all HTML files in [INPUT FOLDER] from Evernote HTML export format to clean, structured text files. Each HTML file is one note exported from Evernote with "Multiple Web Pages (.html)" format.

Create output folder: [OUTPUT FOLDER]
One .txt file per input .html file, with the same filename (but .txt extension).

Evernote HTML structure:
- Note title:
- Created date:
- Tags (if any): (multiple possible)
- Content: inside tags
- Ignore: