| name | intake |
| description | Use when you want to reconcile a task tracker against work-in-flight and groom the leftovers — pull today's captured tasks, drop anything already in motion (live session, open PR, existing issue), and turn the raw notes into groomed issues. Triggers: "grab and reconcile my tasks", "groom my todos", "intake", "which of my tasks aren't tracked yet", "reconcile todoist against github". |
intake — grab & reconcile
Overview
A recurring intake pass: pull the tasks you captured today, filter out
everything already being worked, and groom what's left. It patrols the seam
where a tracker owns when and an issue tracker owns what — your raw
notes-to-self are the tasks that live in the former but not yet the latter.
Two hard guardrails — this skill exists to enforce them:
- Never create an issue without an explicit per-task marker. Default is
annotate-only. A GitHub write happens ONLY when the task carries an opt-in
marker (see Groom). No marker → no write, ever.
- Never flag a task as "raw" while any signal says it's in motion. Fall
through to grooming ONLY when every reconciler comes back empty. When in
doubt, treat it as tracked and skip it — a missed groom is cheap, a
duplicate issue is not.
The four units
Behind one interface, cheapest check first, short-circuit on the first hit.
1. Source adapter — list_candidates()
Returns normalized tasks: {id, title, description, comments[], url}.
- Todoist adapter (shipped): the Today view ∪ overdue. Use the Todoist MCP
find-tasks-by-date for today, plus overdue. Read each task's comments too —
the opt-in marker can live there.
- Other sources: implement the same contract with your own MCP (Linear, GH
Projects, a notes app). The reconcile + groom core below never changes. Only
Todoist ships; the contract is the extension point.
2. Repo resolver
Per task, pick the GitHub repo to reconcile against:
- Task text/description names a repo (
owner/name) or a GitHub URL → use it.
- Otherwise → the
default_repo from ~/.claude/intake/config.json.
3. Reconcilers — is this task already in motion?
Run in order; any hit means tracked → skip the task:
| Order | Signal | How |
|---|
| 1 | Explicit ref | Task text/comments contain #123 or an issue/PR URL |
| 2 | Live session | A cctop --json session whose branch/project/prompt keyword-overlaps the task |
| 3 | Open PR | gh pr list --repo <repo> --search "<keywords>" returns a plausible match |
| 4 | Open/recent issue | gh issue list --repo <repo> --state all --search "<keywords>" returns a plausible match |
Matching is fuzzy and a judgment call — you decide, not a regex. Bias
conservative: a weak keyword overlap on an open PR still counts as "in motion."
Only genuinely-unmatched tasks proceed to grooming.
4. Groomer — raw tasks only
Default → annotate (no GitHub write): post a Todoist comment with a proposed
issue title, a one-paragraph body, and a suggested repo + labels; add the
label intake:needs-grooming. Stop there.
Escalate → create (GitHub write): ONLY if the task carries an opt-in marker —
a comment containing gh issue (or →gh), or a description line
intake: create. Then: create the issue in the resolved repo, post the issue
URL back as a Todoist comment, and swap the label to intake:filed.
Idempotency: the intake:* label + the back-link comment are the memory. On
every run, skip any task already labelled intake:filed, and don't re-post a
grooming proposal to a task already labelled intake:needs-grooming (refresh it
only if the task changed).
Setup
- Config: copy
config.example.json to ~/.claude/intake/config.json and
set default_repo (e.g. blox-eng/blox). Tunable without touching the skill.
- Prerequisites: the source MCP connected (Todoist), and
gh authed
(gh auth status) with access to the repos you reconcile against. cctop on
PATH enables the live-session reconciler; skip signal 2 if absent.
- Schedule (optional): for a recurring pass, drop
intake-prompt.md into a
cron//loop job (suggested 4×/day in your active window). Guard duplicates:
list jobs first, replace — never stack a second intake loop.
Common mistakes
| Mistake | Fix |
|---|
| Creating an issue because the task "clearly needs one" | No marker → annotate only. The marker is the user's consent. |
| Flagging a task raw on a fuzzy PR near-miss | Weak match still counts as in-motion. Skip it. |
| Re-grooming an already-labelled task | intake:filed → skip; intake:needs-grooming → refresh only if changed |
| Hardcoding a repo | Resolve per task; fall back to default_repo in config |
| Building speculative source adapters | Ship Todoist; document the contract for the rest |
