Keep Ready lanes under their cap¶

This guide brings each area and project note's Ready lane to or below its soft cap. The cap counts the whole Ready lane by residence, including NEW and ROTTEN rows. The dashboard READY badge is a separate freshness-gated backlog.

Before you start¶

Install the CLI and open the vault in Obsidian with Bob Ledger Tools enabled. The default cap is plan.max_ready_per_note (5). A note may set ready_cap: N or ready_cap: off in frontmatter.

1. Inspect per-note counts¶

bob ready -b /path/to/vault

Output

bob ready · Tue 2026-10-20 · cap 5 per note

  CROWDED 1 · 2 over · 1 full · 3 notes (2 area · 1 project)

  CROWDED
    workshop  7/5  ■■■■■│■■  +2   area · 6 new
  FULL
    garden  5/5  ■■■■■│  full   area · 5 new
  ROOM
    cash 2

  1 empty · not capped: gkeep_inbox 1 (ready_cap: off)

  Make room → bob ready workshop
  split Ctrl+Shift+N · defer Ctrl+Shift+P 1–4 · drop Ctrl+Shift+P x · sequence Ctrl+Shift+P b

Confirm which notes are CROWDED (over cap), FULL (at cap), or ROOM (under cap). Inbox files that set ready_cap: off are exempt. bob ready exits 0 even when notes are crowded; pass --check if a script should exit 3.

2. Open one crowded note's worklist¶

bob ready workshop -b /path/to/vault

The worklist names each counted Ready task in that note. In Obsidian, the same pressure shows as a CROWDED chip on dash.md and on the note's ## Tasks heading. Open workshop.md and confirm the extra Ready rows match the CLI list.

3. Make deliberate room, then recheck¶

On a counted task, use one Task Card action (Ctrl+Shift+P):

Split a large task (Ctrl+Shift+N from the hint line).
Defer with 1–4 (rolls a scheduled date).
Drop with x (cancels).
Sequence with b (adds a prerequisite so the task becomes Blocked).

Recurring rows and ^prj are not counted. Then:

bob ready -b /path/to/vault

Confirm the note left CROWDED. A remaining FULL note is at its cap, which is allowed. To preview a different default for one run, pass --cap 7. To raise or exempt one note, set ready_cap: in that note's frontmatter and rerun bob ready.

If it goes wrong¶

An invalid ready_cap prints note_ready_cap_invalid once and falls back to the default cap. Fix the frontmatter to an integer 1–999 or off. Exit 2 means a missing vault, a bad plan.max_ready_per_note, or an unknown note name. Crowded is a report, not a refused write.