route-capture

Route Capture

The "do something with the inbox entry" half of the capture pipeline. Reads the classified inbox file, executes the route appropriate to its classification, confirms each side-effect.

Inputs

$ARGUMENTS:

• Required: <inbox-path> — path to an inbox entry (relative to WORKING_FOLDER or absolute).
• Optional: --reclassify=<class> — override the inbox file's classification.
• Optional: --dry-run — show what would happen, don't write.

Examples

/career:capture route inbox/2026-04-28-1430.md
/career:capture route inbox/2026-04-28-1430.md --reclassify=retrospective
/career:capture route inbox/2026-04-28-1430.md --dry-run

Procedure

1. Load + validate

Read the inbox file. Check frontmatter status is pending-route. If routed, ask whether to re-route (rare).

Resolve effective classification: --reclassify if set, else frontmatter classification.

2. Branch by classification

a) quick-note

Read transcript. Extract:

• A task (if action-shaped). Propose schedule-manager:create-task with title + optional due date inferred from transcript.
• A company/contact mention (if present). Propose append to crm/companies.md (status=watching, lens=employer by default — user can edit).

Show each proposed write as a diff. Confirm per-item (multi-step AskUserQuestion or numbered y/n list). Execute confirmed items.

If schedule-manager companion is missing, fall back to writing to ${WORKING_FOLDER}/tasks-inbox.md (an append-only file the user can later sync manually).

b) retrospective

Read transcript. Extract:

• Counterparty (person + company).
• Status change (e.g. sent → replied, meeting-booked → meeting-done).
• Next action (often "follow up with X by Y").
• Mentioned future meeting (if any).

Propose:

1. track-status row update on crm/outreach.md for the counterparty.
2. draft-outreach for the follow-up if a follow-up was mentioned.
3. schedule-manager:create-event for the future meeting if mentioned.

Each proposal shown as a preview. Confirm per-item.

c) strategic-dump

Read transcript. Extract topics that look like:

• Ground-truth deltas (new looking-for, changed salary band, new domain-of-interest).
• Research requests ("I should look into X").
• Branding/positioning thoughts.

Propose:

1. Append a ## Strategic notes — {{date}} section to ${WORKING_FOLDER}/strategic-dumps.md with the cleaned transcript.
2. For each detected ground-truth delta: a per-section diff against current ground-truth.md. Don't write — surface the diff and recommend /career:ground-truth edit-section for the affected sections.
3. For each research request: append to ${WORKING_FOLDER}/research-queue.md (append-only).

d) unclear

Don't route. Update frontmatter status: parked with a one-line note. Tell user: "left in inbox — re-run with --reclassify=<class> once intent is clear."

3. Update inbox entry

After successful routing, update frontmatter:

status: routed
routed-at: {{ISO timestamp}}
route-summary: {{1 line of what was done}}

Append a ## Route log section listing every side-effect:

## Route log
- 2026-04-28 14:42 — created task "follow up with Jane" via schedule-manager
- 2026-04-28 14:42 — drafted follow-up: drafts/2026-04-28-snowglobe-jane.md

4. Print summary

inbox: <path>          → routed
side-effects:
  - <effect 1>
  - <effect 2>
...

next:
  - if drafts created: /career:outreach send <draft-path>
  - if ground-truth deltas surfaced: /career:ground-truth edit-section <section>

Guardrails

• Confirm every external side-effect. Tasks, calendar events, drafts, CRM rows — all require explicit y per item.
• Never silently overwrite ground-truth from a strategic-dump. The skill proposes deltas; the user owns ground-truth edits.
• --dry-run must produce identical proposal output to a live run, just without writes.
• Inbox files are not deleted. The frontmatter status is the source of truth for routed/unrouted.

Failure modes

• Inbox file missing → bail.
• Classification not recognised → bail; ask for --reclassify.
• Companion plugin missing for a route → fall back gracefully (markdown queue file) and note the fallback in the route log.