{"slug": "a-claude-skill-that-turns-long-ai-answers-into-short-notes", "title": "A Claude Skill That Turns Long AI Answers Into Short Notes", "summary": "A developer created 'toot', a Claude skill that condenses long AI answers into short, symbol-heavy notes. The skill, named after the Persian word for mulberry, reduces verbose responses to a few lines while preserving key information. It is implemented as a single SKILL.md file that instructs Claude to summarize answers on demand.", "body_md": "An AI gives a long answer. You read fast and skip most of it. Every time.\n\nYour eyes don't read the whole reply. They look for one thing: the line that says *do this, not that*. The other 400 words are extra. So I wanted a way to turn any answer into short notes — the kind you write in the margin of a book.\n\n`toot`\n\nturns a long answer into short notes. A few words per line. Symbols do most of the work.\n\nThe name is Persian: `toot`\n\n(توت) means **mulberry** — the small berry you eat in one bite. That is the idea: take something big and make it small enough to take in at once.\n\nHere is a real answer about adding a database index:\n\nAdding an index on\n\n`user_id`\n\nmakes these lookups faster, but it is not free. Every index must be updated on each INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE, so tables with many writes pay a cost. Your table has many reads and always filters on`user_id`\n\n, so it is worth it. One warning: if`user_id`\n\nhas very few different values, the planner may skip the index. Also, a composite index on`(user_id, created_at)`\n\nwould cover both the filter and the sort.\n\nThe same answer, after **toot**:\n\n```\nindex on user_id → faster reads ✓\nevery write updates it → write cost ↑\nmany reads + filters user_id → worth it ✓\n⚠ few different values → planner skips it → useless\ncomposite (user_id, created_at) ≡ covers filter + sort\n```\n\nAbout 110 words become 5 lines. Nothing important is lost — the cost, the warning, and the advice are all still there. Two rules keep it safe:\n\n`toot`\n\ntranslates only the one hard word, on its own line below the note. Words you already know — like `cache`\n\nor `rollback`\n\n— stay in English.The skill is just one `SKILL.md`\n\nfile with rules written in plain English. There is no script. Claude does the work; the file tells it how.\n\n**1. Install** — go to your skills folder, then clone the gist:\n\n```\ncd ~/.claude/skills\ngit clone https://gist.github.com/dalirnet/26bc7f57a13f13a030afb78ed17f7d71.git toot\n```\n\nClaude finds it in your next session. To update later: `cd ~/.claude/skills/toot && git pull`\n\n.\n\n**2. Use it** — say `toot`\n\n(or `/toot`\n\n) after any answer. To always translate into one language, add this line to your project's `CLAUDE.md`\n\n:\n\n```\ntoot default language: Persian\n```\n\n", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/a-claude-skill-that-turns-long-ai-answers-into-short-notes", "canonical_source": "https://dev.to/dalirnet/a-claude-skill-that-turns-long-ai-answers-into-short-notes-2gp9", "published_at": "2026-06-26 11:51:26+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-26 12:05:09.949921+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["large-language-models", "developer-tools", "natural-language-processing"], "entities": ["Claude", "toot", "GitHub Gist"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/a-claude-skill-that-turns-long-ai-answers-into-short-notes", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/a-claude-skill-that-turns-long-ai-answers-into-short-notes.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/a-claude-skill-that-turns-long-ai-answers-into-short-notes.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/a-claude-skill-that-turns-long-ai-answers-into-short-notes.jsonld"}}