Inbox triage

inbox-triage

Constraints

• NEVER scan whole vault; scope = Inbox/ or user-specified path only
• NEVER write back without explicit user confirmation
• NEVER produce synthesis or thesis; output is routing decisions only
• NEVER deep-read all items; deep-read only when routing is genuinely uncertain
• MAX 20 items per batch; split and report remainder if more

Trigger Boundary

Use when: triage inbox, sort captures, route raw notes, process fleeting notes, decide what to promote/archive.

Do NOT use for:

• Cross-note relationship analysis → connection-review
• Week-level meaning extraction → weekly-synthesis
• Stable note creation → note-promotion
• Vault health diagnosis → vault-health-feedback

Boundaries

• Owns: inbox routing, capture classification, shallow-read decisions
• Delegates to: connection-review (items needing links), note-promotion (items marked promote)
• Never absorbs: synthesis, health diagnosis, context maintenance, relationship analysis

Continuations

Condition	Next skill
Promoted items with link potential > 2	connection-review
Item marked promote-to-note, user confirms	note-promotion
Inbox path not found or empty	vault-health-feedback
Ambiguous items > 60% of batch	Escalate to human

Companion Skill

All vault operations follow obsidian-mcp. Forbidden: obsidian_patch_note, obsidian_append_to_note. Verify every write through readback.

Procedure

Phase 1: Discover

1. obsidian_list_notes path:"Inbox/" → candidate list
2. Count items; if >20, process first 20 and report remainder

Phase 2: Shallow Read

1. For each: obsidian_get_note format:"document-map" → structure
2. Short notes (<500 words): read as format:"content"
3. Flag genuinely uncertain items → mark needs-deep-read

Phase 3: Classify

When classifying, read references/examples.md for decision calibration.

Decision	Use when
keep-in-inbox	Too raw, still incubating
promote-to-note	Stable, reusable, independent
promote-to-idea	Personal observation worth preserving
move-to-project	Mainly useful inside active project
archive-or-ignore	Low-density, redundant, stale
needs-deep-read	Shallow evidence insufficient, potential value high

Dimensions: reusability, current relevance, cognitive density, connection potential.

Phase 4: Report

When formatting output, read references/templates.md for the exact output format.

Output batch summary per contract. Wait for user confirmation before any write-back.

<details> <summary>Edge Cases (expand only when needed)</summary>

• Empty inbox: report empty, suggest checking path config
• All items ambiguous: escalate to user, ask for 2-3 example decisions to calibrate
• Mixed languages: classify by content quality, not language
• Broken frontmatter: flag but still classify content
• Oversized inbox (50+): process first 20, report "X items remaining, continue?"
• Items with no content (title only): classify as needs-deep-read or archive

</details>

Gotchas

Gotcha 1: Triage becomes mini-synthesis

What happens: Agent writes multi-paragraph analysis for each item Why it's wrong: Triage is routing, not content production; wastes tokens and crosses into weekly-synthesis territory Correct approach: One sentence reason + one decision per item

Gotcha 2: Over-promotion

What happens: Agent marks most items as promote-to-note Why it's wrong: Promotes unstable fragments, creates hollow vault growth Correct approach: Promote only when stable + reusable + independent; default to keep-in-inbox when uncertain

Gotcha 3: Full-reading everything

What happens: Agent reads every note in full before classifying Why it's wrong: Wastes token budget; most routing decisions need only document-map Correct approach: Document-map first; deep-read only genuinely uncertain items

Validators (CI only, not runtime)

• validators/pre-check.sh: Confirms inbox path accessible and not empty
• validators/post-check.sh: Verifies output contains no synthesis markers

Exit Criteria

• Every candidate has exactly one routing decision or needs-deep-read
• Triage has not turned into synthesis
• Batch size ≤20 respected
• Any write-back passed obsidian-mcp readback verification