/clip-thread — Capture Chat/Email Thread to Intake

/clip-thread — Capture Chat/Email Thread to Intake

Save a chat thread or email conversation to intake/clippings/{YYYY-MM-DD}-{slug}.md for review and promotion. Unlike /clip (URL/snippet) or /intake (bulk/doc-anchored), /clip-thread is shaped specifically for threaded conversations — Slack threads, Teams channel discussions, Gmail conversation chains, MS365 email threads.

Runtime Gate (per ADR-094)

Canonical resolution: This is the Claude Code variant. When both plugin-claude-code and plugin-claude-cowork are loaded in the same session (most common in Claude Desktop), bare /clip-thread resolves to this skill — aria-knowledge (Code) is the canonical owner of all 24 dual-port skills per ADR-094 §Part 1. The Cowork variant is namespaced-only: /aria-cowork:clip-thread.

Before Step 0: Check that the Bash tool is available in this session. If Bash is NOT available (you are running in Claude Cowork or another non-Code runtime), surface the following notification and wait for explicit user confirmation:

⚠️ Runtime mismatch — you invoked aria-knowledge's /clip-thread from a non-Code runtime.

This skill requires connected ~~chat / ~~email MCPs, which are typically only present in Cowork. The Cowork-native variant has working MCP access. Use /aria-cowork:clip-thread.

Use /aria-cowork:clip-thread instead? (y / n)

Wait for an explicit reply:

• y / yes — Use the Skill tool to invoke aria-cowork:clip-thread with the same arguments the user provided to this invocation. Do not proceed with this skill's steps; the cowork variant takes over and runs to completion. This is the default-yes path — auto-redirect is the helpful action.
• n / no — Proceed with this (aria-knowledge) variant anyway despite the runtime mismatch. The user has explicitly opted in.
• No response / any other reply — Treat as "do not proceed" and exit cleanly without running either variant.

This gate applies even when mode = auto per ADR-094 §Part 3. Auto mode's "implicit-yes on all gates" rule is suspended for the runtime-mismatch check — auto trusts that the user invoked the correct variant, and this gate enforces that precondition. All other auto-mode gates remain bypassed. The friction cost is now low: on y, the auto-redirect runs the correct variant with the original args.

If Bash is available, proceed to Step 0.

Step 0: Resolve Config

Read ~/.claude/aria-knowledge.local.md and extract knowledge_folder. If the file doesn't exist, stop: "aria-knowledge is not configured. Run /setup to get started."

Verify {knowledge_folder}/intake/clippings/ exists. If not, stop: "Clippings directory not found. Run /setup to repair the knowledge folder structure."

Step 1: Probe Connected MCPs

Check Claude's available tool list for ~~chat and ~~email MCPs. The skill needs at least ONE of these connected to proceed.

• ~~chat (slack, ms365): if connected, available for Slack threads or Teams channel messages.
• ~~email (gmail, ms365): if connected, available for Gmail or MS365 email threads.

If NEITHER category has a connected MCP, output the standard fallback notice and stop:

No required MCPs connected for /clip-thread. Connect one of: Slack, Microsoft 365 Teams (for ~~chat) or Gmail, Microsoft 365 Outlook (for ~~email) via Claude Code's MCP config (or Cowork Settings → Connectors). See CONNECTORS.md. Skipping this run.

Per ADR-015, the runtime tool list IS the probe — no explicit API call needed.

Step 2: Parse Input

The user provides one of:

• A Slack thread URL — https://<workspace>.slack.com/archives/<channel>/<message-ts> or thread permalink
• A Teams message link — https://teams.microsoft.com/l/message/...
• A Gmail thread ID or URL — https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/<thread-id> or just the thread ID
• An MS365 message ID — opaque ID from Outlook
• A bare thread/conversation identifier — opaque string the connected MCP can resolve

Optionally followed by tags (e.g., slack #engineering, email customer-feedback).

Source-type detection:

Input shape	Routes to
Contains slack.com/archives/	~~chat (slack)
Contains teams.microsoft.com	~~chat (ms365)
Contains mail.google.com or matches Gmail thread-ID pattern	~~email (gmail)
Outlook-shaped ID	~~email (ms365)
Ambiguous	Ask user which category to route through

If the detected category's MCP is NOT connected, output the category-specific fallback notice and stop:

This thread looks like a [Slack thread / Gmail thread / etc.] but the ~~chat / ~~email MCP for that source is not connected. Connect [vendor] via your MCP config and retry. Skipping this run.

Step 3: Fetch Thread Content

Call the appropriate MCP tool to retrieve the thread:

• Slack: use the connected slack MCP's conversations.replies (or equivalent) tool with the channel + thread_ts derived from the URL. Retrieve all messages in the thread.
• Teams: use the connected ms365 MCP's message-thread tool.
• Gmail: use the connected gmail MCP's messages.get for each message in the thread (or threads.get if exposed).
• MS365 Outlook: use the ms365 MCP's email-thread tool.

For each message in the thread, gather:

• Author (display name + handle/email)
• Timestamp (ISO format)
• Body (plaintext if available, markdown if the source supports it)
• Reactions / attachments (if exposed — note their presence but don't fetch attachment bodies in this skill)

Limit: if the thread has more than 50 messages, fetch the first 50 + note the truncation in the clipping. The user can run /clip-thread again with a refined identifier for the tail.

Step 4: Compose Clipping

Slug-ify the thread for the filename: use the first message's first ~6 significant words, lowercased, hyphen-separated, ASCII-only.

Generate the date stamp as YYYY-MM-DD (local time).

Filename: intake/clippings/{date}-{slug}.md

If a file with that name already exists, append -2, -3, etc. to deduplicate.

Body template:

---
source: <thread-url-or-id>
source_type: <slack|teams|gmail|ms365>
date: <YYYY-MM-DD>
participants: [<list of unique authors>]
message_count: <N>
tags: [<from input args, plus auto-detected like 'slack' or 'email'>]
---

# <thread topic — extracted from first message's first line or the channel name>

## Context

- **Source:** <source URL or "Slack thread in #channel" / "Gmail thread with N replies">
- **Participants:** <N authors>: <list>
- **Spans:** <first-message-date> → <last-message-date>
- **Message count:** <N> (or "<N> of <total> — truncated at 50")

## Thread

<for each message:>

### <Author> — <timestamp>

<message body, lightly cleaned (remove Slack/MS markup if obvious, preserve markdown)>

<reactions if present: e.g., "Reactions: 👍 ×3, 🎉 ×1">

<attachment notes if present: e.g., "[attachment: deploy-logs.txt (45KB)]">

---

## Reaction

<intentionally left empty — the user's reaction / why this is worth keeping. /audit-knowledge surfaces this for review at next audit pass.>

Step 5: Write + Report

Write the composed clipping to {knowledge_folder}/intake/clippings/{date}-{slug}.md.

Report to user:

Clipped <N> messages from <source-type> thread to intake/clippings/<date>-<slug>.md.

- Participants: <list, max 5 + "and N more" if truncated>
- Spans: <date range>
- Tags: <from input>

Next: review at next /audit-knowledge run. Add a reaction in the "## Reaction" section if you want to lock in the why-it-matters context now.

Rules

• Never auto-promote. Clippings stay in intake/clippings/ until /audit-knowledge routes them. This skill is intake-only.
• Never delete the source. Reading a thread via MCP doesn't modify it; this is read-only externally.
• Respect 50-message truncation cap. Do NOT loop and fetch all pages. If user wants the full thread, they can re-invoke with a refined scope or use the source platform's native export.
• Strip secrets if obvious — if the thread contains what look like API keys, OAuth tokens, or passwords (regex match against common patterns), replace with [REDACTED] in the body and add a redactions: true field to frontmatter. Surface in the report.
• One thread per invocation. If the user wants multiple threads, suggest /intake bulk mode.

Notes

• Composes with /audit-knowledge — clippings written here are routed at next audit per the standard intake-disposition vocabulary (Accept → tracker / roadmap / todo / adr / plan / bundle / rule, or Reject / Defer).
• The ## Reaction section is the user's voice slot. /clip-thread never fills it (the same precedent /intake doc set in v2.17.0).
• This skill is bidirectional per ADR-014 — aria-cowork v0.4.0 ships an identical port. Output schema is byte-identical per ADR-013.
• Probe semantics per ADR-015.