Things Manager

Safely manage Things 3 through the existing SupaThings MCP server. Treat Things data as private local personal data and all create/update/complete/cancel operations as write-capable.

Dispatch

$ARGUMENTS	Mode
intake <request>	Intake
capture <tasks>	Quick Capture
triage inbox	Inbox Triage
today / plan today	Today Planning
weekly review	Weekly Review
project <name or goal>	Project Planning
search <query> / audit <scope>	Search And Audit
cleanup <scope>	Cleanup
bulk <operation>	Bulk Update With Approval
report <scope> / read-only <scope>	Read-Only Report
Natural language about Things tasks, GTD, reviews, planning, capture, or cleanup	Classify intent, then route
Empty	Ask which Things workflow the user wants and show the mode menu

Empty Args Handler

Ask: "Which Things workflow do you want?"

Offer these choices:

Choice	Use When
Today plan	Plan a realistic day from Today and Upcoming
Inbox triage	Classify Inbox items and propose projects/tags/dates
Weekly review	Review Today, Upcoming, projects, Someday, and recent Logbook
Project planning	Turn a goal into a Things project and tasks
Search/audit	Find tasks, tags, areas, deadlines, or stale work
Capture tasks	Convert notes into Things todos

Classification Logic

Before using SupaThings tools, classify the request:

1. Decide whether the user's intent is read-only or write-capable.
2. Decide whether the target is a single item or a bulk item set.
3. Decide whether date, deadline, tag, project, area, title, or target item ambiguity blocks writes.
4. Decide whether the operation is destructive because it completes, cancels, or performs delete-like cleanup.
5. Route to the safest mode and ask clarifying questions before write tools when any write-blocking ambiguity remains.

Dimension	Read-Only	Write-Capable
Intent	inspect, list, report, plan, review, search	create, update, schedule, deadline, tag, move, complete, cancel
Scope	single item or view	multiple items, project, area, tag, or bulk operation
Ambiguity	missing context is acceptable for a report	missing date, deadline, tag, project, area, title, or target item blocks writes
Risk	no mutation	complete, cancel, delete-like cleanup, or bulk edits require preview and explicit confirmation

If write-capable intent is ambiguous, ask one concise clarification before writing. If the user asks for a read-only plan that could become edits, present recommendations first and ask whether to apply them.

Classification Result	Mode
read-only personal planning	Read-Only Report or Today Planning
single clear capture	Quick Capture
multiple creates or updates	Bulk Update With Approval
completion, cancellation, or cleanup	Cleanup with destructive-write confirmation
unclear project, tag, date, deadline, or target item	Intake before write tools

Tool Use Guidance

Prefer SupaThings read tools before write tools:

Need	Prefer
Current workload	things_get-today, things_get-upcoming, things_get-anytime, things_get-someday
Inbox triage	things_get-inbox
Project/area/tag lookup	things_get-projects, things_get-areas, things_get-tags
Duplicate prevention	things_search-todos, things_search-items, things_search-advanced
Review/history	things_get-logbook, things_get-recent
Details for a target item	things_show-item
Creates	things_add-todo, things_add-project after preview when needed
Updates/completion/cancellation	things_update-todo, things_update-project after confirmation

Use Logbook only for review/history workflows. Never edit Things' local database directly.

Workflows

Intake

1. Restate the requested Things workflow and classify it with the gate.
2. Identify required reads and whether any write approval will be needed.
3. Ask only for missing information that blocks the next safe step.

Quick Capture

1. Preserve user wording for task titles unless cleanup is requested.
2. Parse optional notes, checklist items, tags, when, deadline, project, area, and heading.
3. Search first when a task sounds like it may already exist.
4. For one clear task, create it after explicit capture intent; for multiple tasks, show a Preview first.

Inbox Triage

1. Read Inbox, projects, areas, and tags.
2. Group items as actionable, waiting, someday, reference-like, ambiguous, or duplicate candidates.
3. Ask for missing context before assigning unclear projects, tags, schedules, or deadlines.
4. Preview proposed updates, then apply only approved changes.

Today Planning

1. Read Today and Upcoming.
2. Identify overdue, due-soon, time-sensitive, blocked, and overloaded work.
3. Propose a realistic plan with a short must-do list and deferrals.
4. Apply schedule/tag changes only after approval.

Weekly Review

1. Inspect Today, Upcoming, Anytime, Someday, projects, and recent Logbook.
2. Identify stale projects, overloaded days, orphan tasks, missing next actions, ambiguous Someday items, and deadline risks.
3. Produce a grouped report with recommended next actions.
4. Convert recommendations into writes only after preview and confirmation.

Project Planning

1. Clarify outcome, project name, area, deadline, and initial next actions.
2. Look up existing projects and areas before creating anything.
3. Preview the exact project, notes, headings, todos, and checklists.
4. Create or update the project only after approval.

Search And Audit

1. Use the narrowest search or view for the question.
2. Summarize only necessary personal task details.
3. Return counts, patterns, risks, and recommended next actions.

Cleanup

1. Search for stale, duplicate, completed, canceled, orphaned, or tag-specific items.
2. Present findings and proposed cleanup actions separately.
3. Never bulk-complete or bulk-cancel without explicit confirmation.

Bulk Update With Approval

1. Read the target set and compute the exact affected items.
2. Show a Preview with exact creates, updates, completions, and cancellations.
3. Ask for explicit confirmation before calling write tools.
4. After applying, report changed, skipped, failed, and ambiguous items.

Read-Only Report

1. Do not mutate Things.
2. Group findings by view, project, area, tag, deadline, or risk.
3. Include task counts and recommended next actions.

Output Contracts

Read-Only Reports

Include:

• Scope inspected
• Counts by group
• Highest-risk or highest-leverage findings
• Recommended next actions
• Privacy note if details were intentionally summarized

Proposed Writes

Use this exact section title before any bulk or destructive write:

## Preview

- Creates: ...
- Updates: ...
- Completions: ...
- Cancellations: ...
- Skips/ambiguity: ...

Then ask for confirmation. Do not write until the user approves.

Completed Writes

Include:

• Changed items
• Skipped items and why
• Failed operations and next steps
• Remaining ambiguity

Progressive Disclosure

• Read references/safety.md before write-capable, bulk, destructive, or privacy-sensitive workflows.
• Read references/workflows.md for detailed daily planning, weekly review, triage, project planning, multi-item capture, cleanup, and audit recipes.
• Do not load all references for simple read-only searches or single clear captures.

Reference File Index

File	Purpose	When to Read
references/safety.md	Write-confirmation, duplicate-prevention, date/deadline, and privacy rules	Any write-capable, bulk, destructive, or privacy-sensitive operation
references/workflows.md	Detailed Things workflow recipes and output patterns	Planning, triage, review, project planning, capture, cleanup, or audits

Scope Boundaries

IS for: Things 3 tasks, todos, projects, areas, tags, checklists, schedules, deadlines, Today, Upcoming, Anytime, Someday, Inbox, Logbook, GTD workflows, reviews, planning, and cleanup through SupaThings MCP.

NOT for: generic calendar scheduling unless it becomes Things tasks, Gmail/email management, non-Things task managers, MCP server creation/configuration, direct local database edits, secret handling, or bypassing confirmation for destructive or bulk writes.

Validation Contract

Run these before declaring changes to this skill complete:

uv run wagents validate
uv run wagents eval validate
uv run python skills/skill-creator/scripts/audit.py skills/things-manager/
uv run wagents package things-manager --dry-run

Completion criteria:

• All validations pass.
• Audit grade is A or any remaining gap is explicitly documented.
• Package dry-run reports Portable: yes.
• Smoke-check representative eval prompts for read-only planning, ambiguous deadlines, and bulk approval behavior.
• No docs generation is run by this skill; docs sync belongs to docs-steward.

Critical Rules

1. Never mutate Things without explicit user intent.
2. For bulk creates, updates, completions, or cancellations, present a Preview and get confirmation first.
3. Require confirmation before completing, canceling, or delete-like cleanup, even if the target set seems obvious.
4. Do not infer deadlines from vague language; ask unless the user clearly states a deadline.
5. Distinguish when scheduling from deadline in every proposed write.
6. Preserve user wording for task titles unless the user asks for cleanup or rewriting.
7. Search before creating tasks that may already exist.
8. Use project, area, and tag lookup tools before assigning items to lists or tags.
9. Do not expose sensitive personal task details unless they are necessary for the requested workflow.
10. Never edit Things' local database directly; use only SupaThings MCP tools.
11. Do not create, install, or configure MCP servers; redirect SupaThings MCP setup requests to MCP tooling.

Canonical Vocabulary

Canonical terms (use these exactly throughout):

• Modes: "Intake", "Quick Capture", "Inbox Triage", "Today Planning", "Weekly Review", "Project Planning", "Search And Audit", "Cleanup", "Bulk Update With Approval", "Read-Only Report"
• Date fields: when means Things schedule/start date; deadline means due date
• Risk labels: "read-only", "single-write", "bulk-write", "destructive-write"