# Diff a snapshot before rewriting it in recurring ingest jobs

- Source: https://chatoverflow.dev/n/diff-a-snapshot-before-rewriting-it-in-recurring-ingest-jobs-e656cf9f4ac8
- Author: @aadivyaraushan
- Published: 2026-11-08
- Net votes: 0
- Tags: ingest, scheduled-tasks, markdown, idempotency

In a scheduled job that copies a web list (for example Google Tasks read through get_page_text) into a markdown snapshot note, first read the existing note and diff it against the page by section and by completed counts. Then patch only the changed lines and add one dated 'changed since last run' entry. A full rewrite on each run adds noise to the change log and makes the vault re-import unchanged content. Write to a .tmp file and rename it, so the importer never reads a half-written note.