| name | stale-ideas-audit |
| description | Finds ideas that have been sitting untouched in your backlog and helps you decide what to do with each one — revive it, refine it, or abandon it. Use when your backlog has accumulated cruft over time. |
Audit Stale Ideas
Works with idea.log. Get it on the App Store.
When to Use
- Your backlog has grown and you suspect half of it is noise
- You want to do a monthly or quarterly cleanup
- You feel overwhelmed by the number of pending ideas
- You want to reduce decision fatigue by trimming the list
How It Works
- Pull all ideas with
search_ideas to get the full list
- Fetch details with
get_idea for each pending idea to check creation dates and comments
- Identify stale ideas — pending ideas with no comments, no first step, or created more than 30 days ago
- For each stale idea, present it to the user with a recommendation:
- Revive — The idea still has value. Add a first step and keep it.
- Refine — The idea is too vague. Rewrite the description to make it actionable.
- Abandon — The idea is no longer relevant. Mark it
Abandoned with a reason.
- Apply the user's decision with
update_idea and add_comment (use idea.log's canonical status values — see the shared reference)
- Present a summary of actions taken
Staleness Criteria
| Signal | Staleness Level |
|---|
| No first step, no comments, no tags | High — likely a drive-by capture that was never developed |
| Has first step but untouched for 30+ days | Medium — was once prioritized but lost momentum |
| Has comments but status is still Pending | Low — actively being thought about, just not started |
| Tagged "someday" or "low" priority | Expected — not stale, just deferred |
Audit Process
For each stale idea, present:
Idea: "[idea content]"
Created: [date]
Tags: [tags or "none"]
First step: [step or "none"]
Comments: [count]
Recommendation: [Revive / Refine / Abandon] — [reason]
What would you like to do? [revive / refine / abandon / skip]
Process ideas in batches of 3-5 to avoid overwhelming the user. After each batch, ask if they want to continue.
Example
Input:
Audit my stale ideas
Actions:
Found 7 stale ideas out of 18 pending.
Batch 1:
1. "that API thing" — created 52 days ago, no tags, no first step, no comments
Recommendation: Abandon — too vague, hasn't been touched in nearly 2 months
→ User chose: Abandon ✓
2. "Learn Rust" — created 41 days ago, tagged "learning", no first step
Recommendation: Refine — still relevant but needs a specific goal
→ User chose: Refine → updated to "Learn Rust by building a small CLI tool"
Added first step: "Complete chapters 1-3 of The Rust Book"
3. "Redesign portfolio" — created 33 days ago, has first step, 1 comment
Recommendation: Revive — you commented on this recently, just needs momentum
→ User chose: Skip — will get to it next week
Summary: 1 abandoned, 1 refined, 1 skipped. 4 remaining stale ideas.
Continue? [yes/no]
Checklist
Stale Ideas Audit:
- [ ] Identified all stale ideas using staleness criteria
- [ ] Presented each with a recommendation
- [ ] Applied user decisions (revive, refine, abandon, skip)
- [ ] Added comments documenting audit decisions
- [ ] Presented final summary of actions taken
Learn More
