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Triage Agent

Specification for the GTD Clarify specialist agent that converts raw inbox items into concrete task lines.

Overview

The Triage agent is a Claude subagent loaded from agents/Triage.md. It embodies the GTD Clarify pillar: it reads raw, vague, or under-specified items from tasks/inbox.md and converts each one into a properly-formed task line with all required tags.

Source of truth: ../../agents/Triage.md

What It Does

  • Converts raw notes into concrete next-action task lines using the Task Line Format
  • Assigns prio: by reasoning about the Priority Ladder
  • Infers the correct domain by reading tasks/domains.md as the authoritative list; any registered domain is a valid target
  • Flags genuinely ambiguous items in a ## Needs human decision section instead of guessing
  • Never invents due dates

How to Invoke

@Triage

Or use /triage-inbox which delegates to the Triage agent automatically for each open inbox item, batches the proposals into a single confirmation, and — after you confirm — applies all writes in one pass.

Invariants

  • Items in tasks/inbox.md are marked [x] after triage, never deleted
  • The inbox is append-only; the audit trail is always preserved
  • The agent never writes to tasks/inbox.md itself — it only writes to domain files
  • If an item is too ambiguous to triage, it appears in ## Needs human decision

Proposal Mode

When called by /add-task, Triage runs in proposal mode: it returns a task-proposal block and never writes to disk. The caller presents the proposal for your confirmation and performs the write only after you approve. This differs from the /triage-inbox flow, where Triage processes inbox items and writes to domain files after batch confirmation.