Capture

Capture

A reliable front door for every commitment, idea, and open loop — and a processing pass that empties it. Capture is cheap and fails silently: you never notice the thought you didn't record, only the dropped commitment weeks later. This skill covers the capture conventions, the triage decision rules that convert fragments into executable next actions, and the weekly pass that keeps the inbox at zero.

When to use this skill

• Commitments keep slipping and you are discovering them from other people's follow-ups
• Your notes app, task inbox, and paper notebook have all become backlogs nobody drains
• The same items get reviewed week after week and never get done
• You are rebuilding a productivity system that collapsed and want the load-bearing part first
• Captured items are phrased as topics (pricing, taxes) rather than actions
• You want to measure whether the capture habit is actually working, not assume it

Inputs the skill expects

• A capture log — JSON with text and ideally captured_at, or a markdown bullet list
• The set of surfaces you currently capture into (phone, notebook, email, chat)
• Which single place you intend to use as the processing inbox
• Your current weekly processing slot, if one exists
• A reference date for staleness analysis (passed explicitly — the tools never read the clock)

Clarify First

Before generating, confirm these inputs. If any is unknown or vague, ASK — do not assume:

• Which inbox is the processing inbox — the whole design collapses if items drain to more than two places
• Whether the log carries capture timestamps — without them, staleness and habit-health analysis are unavailable and the audit degrades to phrasing only
• Whether a weekly processing slot already exists — determines whether this is a setup job or a repair job
• Tolerance for dropping items — sets how aggressive the drop recommendations are; some users need permission, others need a brake

Stop rule: ask only the 2-3 that most change the output. If the user says "just draft it," proceed and list your assumptions at the top of the artifact.

Workflows

Workflow 1 — Triage the inbox into buckets with next actions