Daily reading

Structured daily reading on any topic — non-overlapping concepts, configurable length, and built-in health track.

Daily reading delivers a fresh lesson each day on a topic you choose. Concepts never repeat across sessions, length is configurable (about 40–60 minutes by default), and a built-in health track covers diet, exercise, and wellness without setup.

Quick start

# Built-in health track
arka health_reading today
arka health_reading today --minutes 60

# Any topic — create a track once, then read daily
arka daily_reading init "machine learning fundamentals"
arka daily_reading today
arka daily_reading today --track machine-learning-fundamentals --minutes 45

# Manage tracks
arka daily_reading list-tracks
arka daily_reading use rust
arka daily_reading status
arka daily_reading upcoming
arka daily_reading set-default 50

Natural language

arka "daily reading today"
arka "40 minute reading on stoic philosophy"
arka "health reading status"
arka "1 hour wellness reading"

Health or wellness phrasing uses the health track. Generic topics auto-init a new track when none exists yet.

How it works

1. Curriculum — Each track has pillars and concept IDs. The built-in health track ships with ~45 concepts across nutrition, exercise, and general health. For other topics, init asks an LLM to generate a JSON curriculum.
2. Session selection — Each day picks 3–5 concepts based on reading length, rotating across pillars so coverage stays balanced.
3. Lesson generation — An LLM writes markdown for only today’s concepts and ends with CONCEPTS: id1, id2, ... so progress is recorded.
4. Idempotent days — Running today again on the same calendar day returns the saved lesson unless you pass --force.

Commands

Command	Description
daily_reading init <topic>	Create a new reading track (LLM-generated curriculum)
daily_reading today	Generate or show today’s lesson
daily_reading list-tracks	List built-in and custom tracks
daily_reading use <slug>	Set the active track
daily_reading status	Progress for the current track
daily_reading upcoming	Preview the next concepts
daily_reading reset	Clear progress and saved lessons for a track
daily_reading schedule	Print an arka routines command for daily automation
daily_reading set-default <minutes>	Default reading length
health_reading …	Same as daily_reading --track health …

Init options

arka daily_reading init "Rust programming" --track rust --pillars basics,ownership,async
arka daily_reading init "nutrition science" --force   # replace existing track file

Storage

Path	Purpose
~/.config/arka/daily-reading/settings.json	Active track, default minutes
~/.config/arka/daily-reading/tracks/<slug>/curriculum.json	Concept map
~/.config/arka/daily-reading/tracks/<slug>/state.json	Covered concepts and session log
~/.config/arka/daily-reading/tracks/<slug>/lessons/<date>.md	Saved daily lessons

The health built-in curriculum lives in the package; a file under tracks/health/ overrides it only if you customize it.

Schedule a daily habit

arka daily_reading schedule --when 08:00 --minutes 40
# Prints: arka routines add daily '08:00' 'daily_reading today --track … --minutes 40' --install

Routing

arka route "40 minute reading on world history"
# → daily_reading init 'world history'   (if track missing)

arka route "health reading today"
# → health_reading --track health today

Health disclaimer

The built-in health track includes a disclaimer in each lesson: not medical advice. Consult a clinician for personal health decisions.

Related

• Quiz practice — interactive Q&A with per-topic memory
• Daily and tech brief — morning headlines, not long-form reading
• CLI reference — all subcommands and aliases