priority-signals

Priority Signals

When users ask about urgent or priority items, use Glean to identify what needs immediate attention based on activity signals.

Tool Naming

See the glean-tools-guide skill for Glean MCP tool naming conventions.

When This Applies

Use this approach when users ask:

• "What's urgent?"
• "What needs my attention?"
• "What should I focus on first?"
• "Are there any blockers waiting on me?"
• "What's critical right now?"
• "Help me prioritize"

BE SKEPTICAL

Not every item found is truly urgent. Before including results, evaluate:

Urgency Validity Test

• Is this genuinely urgent, or just recent/noisy?
• ✅ URGENT: Explicit deadline, blocking others, explicitly marked urgent
• ⚠️ IMPORTANT: Should address but not time-critical
• ❌ NOISE: Just new, not actually urgent

Relevance Test

• Is this the user's responsibility?
• ✅ INCLUDE: Directly assigned, explicitly mentioned
• ❌ EXCLUDE: Just CC'd, tangentially related

Filter Out:

• Mass announcements
• CC'd threads where they're not primary audience
• "Urgent" labels on non-urgent items (urgency inflation)
• Old items that were urgent but are now resolved

Quality over noise: Better to report "nothing urgent" than overwhelm with false positives.

Priority Signal Sources

Signal Type	Glean Tool	What to Look For
Direct mentions	search	People tagging/mentioning the user
Action items	meeting_lookup	Items assigned in meetings
Waiting on you	search	Questions awaiting response
Urgent keywords	search	"urgent", "ASAP", "blocking"
Recent activity	user_activity	Items you've engaged with

Query Patterns

Find Urgent Mentions

search query="urgent OR ASAP OR blocking [user name]" updated="past_week" sort_by_recency=true

Find Assignments from Meetings

chat "What action items were assigned to [user] in meetings over the past week?"

Find Waiting Questions

search query="[user name] question OR asking" updated="past_week"

Priority Tiers

When presenting results, categorize by urgency (ONLY after vetting):

Tier 1: Immediate (Today)

• Explicit deadlines today
• Items marked urgent/ASAP with evidence it's genuine
• Blockers on others

Tier 2: Soon (This Week)

• Action items from recent meetings
• Questions awaiting response
• Review requests

Tier 3: Awareness

• Decisions affecting your area
• Updates to watch
• FYI items

Output Format

## Priority Triage

### Vetting Summary
| Found | Genuinely Urgent | Filtered Out |
|-------|------------------|--------------|
| [X] | [Y] | [Z - not actually urgent] |

### Immediate Attention
| Item | Source | Why Urgent |
|------|--------|------------|
| [Item] | [Source] | [Specific reason - deadline/blocker] |

### This Week
| Item | Source | Deadline |
|------|--------|----------|
| [Item] | [Source] | [Date if known] |

### Filtered (Not Actually Urgent)
- [Item] - [Why filtered: CC'd only / already resolved / etc.]

If Nothing Is Urgent

This is a valid and valuable answer:

## Priority Triage

### No Urgent Items Found

Searched [X] sources and found no items requiring immediate attention.

**What was checked:**
- Direct mentions: None requiring action
- Meeting action items: All current
- Blocking requests: None found

**Suggestion**: This might be a good time for [deep work / planning / etc.]

Relationship to Commands

For comprehensive briefings, suggest:

• /glean-productivity:daily-briefing - Full morning briefing with prioritized items
• /glean-meetings:catch-up - Catch up after time away