| name | refacil:inbox |
| description | View new messages from the room since the last time you read them. Useful when a question with --wait expired without a response. |
| user-invocable | true |
refacil:inbox — New messages in the room
Retrieves new messages since the last time this session ran inbox. Excludes messages sent by the session itself.
Instructions
Step 1: Execute inbox
Run via Bash:
refacil-sdd-ai bus inbox
The CLI prints the new messages (if any) with from, kind, text, and timestamp.
Step 2: Process the messages
- If there are
kind=reply messages directed to this session, use them as context to continue the flow that originated the question (the user may have asked you to "check if a response arrived and continue").
- If there are
kind=ask messages directed to this session without a response, consider whether it is appropriate to respond with /refacil:reply.
- If there are relevant broadcasts, summarize them to the user.
- If the thread implies change agreements in this repo, when acting use
/refacil:propose and when closing notify the requester via bus (refacil-prereqs/BUS-CROSS-REPO.md).
Step 3: Report to the user
Present the new messages clearly and, if applicable, propose the next step.
What appears in the inbox
The inbox for this session shows only:
ask messages directed to this session — sent by another session with bus ask --to [this-session] or bus ask --to all.reply messages to your own correlationId — responses to questions you sent with bus ask.
say (broadcast) messages from other sessions do NOT appear in this session's inbox. say is a real-time broadcast only; sessions that were not connected when the say was sent will never see it in the inbox. For content that must be received and acted on, use bus ask --to SESSION instead.
When to use /refacil:inbox
- After a
/refacil:ask --wait N expired without a response — to check if it arrived later.
- When returning to a session you left paused while others were collaborating.
- When the user says "check the bus" or "is there anything new?".
Rules
- Running
inbox updates the session's lastSeen: the next call only brings subsequent messages. Do not run it in a loop.
- If there are no new messages, the CLI explicitly indicates it and you must not invent content.
