Assign IDs to every entry in Org-mode

Question

Org-mode has a bundled extension called org-id, that implements global unique IDs for org-mode files. Every entry (a headline with its body) can have an ID property in its <

Answer 1

I agree with Stuart—I don't think there's anything in org-id to do this automatically so it really comes down to when you want to add the ids.

If you use org-capture to add all of your items then org-capture-prepare-finalize-hook is a logical place to put the code:

(add-hook 'org-capture-prepare-finalize-hook 'org-id-get-create)

Alternately you could do as Stuart suggested and add a save hook for org-mode files. I think the most idiomatic way to process all of the headlines in the file would be to use the mapping API:

(defun my/org-add-ids-to-headlines-in-file ()
  "Add ID properties to all headlines in the current file which
do not already have one."
  (interactive)
  (org-map-entries 'org-id-get-create))

Finally we just need to add a before-save-hook which only runs in org-mode:

(add-hook 'org-mode-hook
          (lambda ()
            (add-hook 'before-save-hook 'my/org-add-ids-to-headlines-in-file nil 'local)))

That should do it!