Daily News Briefing

Get AI-powered daily news summaries directly in your Obsidian vault. Stay informed about your topics of interest with smart, automated news collection and summarization.

Comment

Inspiration

In today's fast-paced digital world, staying informed about relevant news can be overwhelming. Information overload is a real problem, with countless news sources competing for our attention while offering varying levels of quality and relevance. As an Obsidian user who values knowledge management, I realized there was a need for a solution that could automatically collect, filter, and summarize news on topics I care about—all within my existing note-taking workflow. This inspired me to create the Daily News Briefing plugin, bringing AI-powered news curation directly into Obsidian vaults without requiring users to visit multiple websites or news apps.

What it does

Daily News Briefing is an Obsidian plugin that delivers personalized, AI-powered news summaries directly into your knowledge management system. It works by:

  1. Automatically collecting news from across the web based on user-defined topics
  2. Implementing a multi-phase search strategy with quality scoring to filter reliable sources
  3. Using Google's Gemini 2.0 Flash AI model to generate comprehensive news summaries
  4. Creating beautifully formatted Markdown files organized by topic with table of contents
  5. Providing flexible output formats (detailed or concise) based on user preferences
  6. Running on a customizable schedule to deliver fresh news daily
  7. Maintaining an organized archive of past news briefings within your Obsidian vault

Each news summary includes key developments with concrete facts, source attribution in markdown format, contextual analysis, and notable quotes or data points—all formatted to seamlessly blend with your Obsidian theme.

How we built it

The project was built as a TypeScript-based Obsidian plugin with several key components:

  1. Search API Integration: I implemented the Google Custom Search API to fetch relevant news articles based on user-defined topics, with advanced filtering logic to prioritize quality content.

  2. AI-Powered Summarization: I integrated Google's Gemini 2.0 Flash model to analyze and summarize news content, crafting carefully designed prompts that emphasize factual accuracy and substantive information.

  3. Quality Filtering System: I developed a scoring algorithm to evaluate news sources based on domain reputation, content length, and information density, ensuring users receive reliable news.

  4. User Configuration: I created an intuitive settings interface allowing users to customize topics, schedule, output format, and filtering preferences.

  5. Theme-Aware Styling: I implemented CSS that adapts to Obsidian's theming system, ensuring generated news notes match the user's visual preferences.

  6. Efficient API Usage: I optimized API calls to balance quality results with usage limitations, implementing caching and quality thresholds to reduce unnecessary API consumption.

The development process followed an iterative approach, starting with core functionality and gradually adding features like automated scheduling, quality filtering, and custom prompt options based on user feedback.

Challenges we ran into

Building Daily News Briefing presented several technical and design challenges:

  1. Quality Content Filtering: Distinguishing between substantive news and promotional content was challenging. I had to develop a multi-faceted scoring system considering source reputation, content length, information density, and keyword analysis.

  2. AI Summarization Accuracy: Early versions sometimes produced vague summaries lacking specific details. I refined the AI prompts extensively to emphasize concrete facts, statistics, and direct quotes while avoiding generalizations.

  3. API Usage Optimization: Balancing comprehensive news coverage with API quota limitations required careful optimization. I implemented progressive search strategies and content quality thresholds to avoid wasting API calls on low-quality sources.

  4. Cross-Platform Compatibility: Ensuring consistent functionality across different operating systems and Obsidian versions required extensive testing and refinement of the scheduling and file handling logic.

  5. User Experience Design: Creating an interface that was both powerful and approachable meant finding the right balance between customization options and simplicity, requiring several iterations of the settings interface.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I'm particularly proud of several achievements with this project:

  1. AI Prompt Engineering: The sophisticated prompt system that guides the Gemini AI to produce consistently high-quality, fact-focused summaries with proper attribution and formatting.

  2. Quality-First Approach: Successfully implementing a content filtering system that prioritizes substantive news over clickbait, saving users time and providing genuinely valuable information.

  3. Seamless Integration: Creating an experience that feels like a native part of the Obsidian ecosystem, respecting user themes and workflow patterns.

  4. User Flexibility: Balancing automation with user control through customizable topics, schedules, and output formats that adapt to different information needs.

  5. Efficient API Usage: Designing algorithms that maximize value while minimizing API costs, making the plugin practical for everyday use.

  6. Beautiful Output: Generating well-structured, visually appealing news briefings that enhance rather than complicate the user's knowledge management system.

What we learned

This project provided valuable learning opportunities in several areas:

  1. AI Integration: I gained practical experience integrating generative AI models into productivity tools, including prompt engineering techniques to guide AI behavior toward specific outputs.

  2. Search Optimization: I learned sophisticated strategies for refining search queries to yield more relevant results, combining keywords, operators, and quality filters.

  3. Plugin Architecture: I developed a deeper understanding of Obsidian's plugin API and event system, creating more robust and performant extensions.

  4. User-Centered Design: I learned to balance powerful features with usability, providing sensible defaults while allowing deep customization for advanced users.

  5. API Consumption Patterns: I gained insights into efficient API usage patterns, implementing tiered approaches that reserve higher-cost operations for content that passes initial quality checks.

  6. Content Quality Assessment: I developed techniques to programmatically evaluate the substantive value of news content, distinguishing between information-rich sources and promotional material.

What's next for Daily News Briefing

Looking ahead, I plan to enhance Daily News Briefing with several exciting features:

  1. Expanded Source Diversity: Integrating additional news APIs to broaden coverage and provide alternative perspectives on important topics.

  2. Knowledge Integration: Developing features to connect news summaries with existing notes in the user's vault, automatically linking to relevant concepts and building a personalized knowledge graph.

  3. Historical Context: Adding capabilities to provide historical context for current events by referencing past news on related topics.

  4. Collaborative Filtering: Implementing community-based quality assessments to further improve news source reliability rankings.

  5. Personalized Relevance Scoring: Creating machine learning models that learn from user interactions to better prioritize truly important news.

  6. Multi-language Support: Expanding capabilities to summarize news in multiple languages and provide translations when needed.

  7. Media Integration: Adding support for including relevant images, charts, and graphs from news sources to enhance visual understanding.

I'm excited to continue developing this tool to help knowledge workers stay informed with high-quality, relevant news integrated directly into their personal knowledge management systems.

Built With

Share this project:

Updates