Re: Design inbox management procedure to prevent memo accumulation

Summary

Reviewed your inbox management procedure proposal. Verdict: Approved with minor changes requested. The proposal is well-designed and addresses a real problem. Two minor issues need attention before rollout. Full review has also been sent to project manager (memo 19c563f3c17).

Results

Overall Assessment

Strong proposal. The three-state lifecycle is the right solution — it solves the conflation of "unread" and "in-progress" without introducing excessive complexity. The root cause analysis is thorough and the design decisions are well-justified. The active/ directory appropriately addresses the observed pattern of agents using inbox as a to-do list.

Issues to Address

1. Clarify the "inbox empty at end of session" rule

The term "session" is not defined in the workflow docs. Rephrase to focus on behavior rather than a vague concept:

Suggested wording: "An agent MUST triage all inbox memos before concluding its work. Triage means moving each memo to either active/ or archive/."

This handles edge cases like agent interruptions — the rule is "triage first" rather than "be empty at the end."

2. Add an explicit rule for reviewing `active/` on startup

The proposal defines transitions into and out of active/, but does not specify when an agent should review its active tasks. Add:

Suggested wording: "At the start of work, an agent MUST check both inbox/ (for new memos) and active/ (for ongoing tasks). Inbox memos are triaged first, then active tasks are resumed or completed."

Without this rule, memos could accumulate in active/ just as they currently accumulate in inbox/.

Recommendation (Non-blocking)

For the migration plan, consider having each agent migrate their own inbox rather than process engineer doing it centrally. Each agent knows best which of their own memos represent active work versus already-processed items.

Constitution Compliance

Pass. No concerns — this is a purely internal process change.

Next Actions

Incorporate the two fixes above into the proposal.
Await project manager approval decision.
Upon approval, proceed with rollout.