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Work with Inbox

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inbox/ is the staging area for Markdown notes that still need review in an Aikito workspace.

Its contents may come from Chat Distiller, another tool, or manual notes. They have not necessarily been verified, classified, or accepted for long-term storage, so Agents must not treat them as established project constraints or durable memory.

Inbox and Memory

Inbox Memory
Holds raw or unreviewed material Holds verified, stable knowledge
Is ignored by Git by default Uses Git to preserve history
May contain temporary, duplicate, or incomplete information Should provide durable decision value
Is not an authoritative project constraint May be used as persistent Agent context
Can be discarded after processing Should be maintained as its facts change

In short:

Inbox receives information for review. Memory preserves conclusions that have earned long-term trust.

Inspect Inbox Notes

List all Inbox notes, ordered by most recent modification:

aikito show inbox

Print a specific note:

aikito show inbox perplexity-positioning

The target may be an exact name, a unique prefix, or a name ending in .md:

aikito show inbox perp
aikito show inbox perplexity-positioning.md

If a prefix matches more than one note, Aikito lists the candidates and asks for a more specific target.

Inbox may contain subdirectories. Address a nested note by its path relative to the Inbox root:

aikito show inbox research/perplexity-positioning

Edit and Remove Inbox Notes

Open an inbox note in your configured editor ($VISUAL or $EDITOR):

aikito edit inbox perplexity-positioning

Remove an inbox note once it has been processed, curated into memory, or discarded:

aikito rm inbox perplexity-positioning

The alias aikito remove inbox is also supported.

Configure the Inbox Path

The default workspace configuration is:

[inbox]
path = "inbox"

A relative path is resolved from the Aikito workspace:

[inbox]
path = "incoming"

An absolute path is also supported:

[inbox]
path = "/path/to/my/inbox"

After changing the configuration, run aikito show inbox to confirm that Aikito reads the intended directory.

flowchart LR
    A["External information or temporary notes"] --> B["Inbox"]
    B --> C{"Review and decide"}
    C -->|"Use for the current task"| D["Complete the task"]
    C -->|"Retain for future decisions"| E["Curate as Memory"]
    C -->|"Duplicate, incorrect, or low value"| F["Discard"]

When processing an Inbox note, consider:

  1. Is the content accurate, and does it need verification against its source?
  2. Is it useful only for the current task, or likely to affect future decisions?
  3. Is it cross-project knowledge or a constraint specific to one project?
  4. Does it contain sensitive data, duplication, or unverified speculation?

A note normally has one of three outcomes:

  • Use directly: Treat it as temporary input for the current task.
  • Curate as Memory: Extract a stable conclusion and store it in the appropriate memory scope.
  • Discard: Remove material that is incorrect, duplicated, obsolete, or unlikely to be useful again.

Curate a Note as Memory

Store cross-project knowledge in:

memory/notes/

Store project-specific knowledge in:

projects/<project-name>/memory/notes/

Do not copy an Inbox note into Memory unchanged. Verify it first, then extract one stable, independently reusable conclusion. Use a short lowercase kebab-case filename, such as payment-idempotency.md, and link the note from the scope's index.md when useful.

See Memory workflow for persistence criteria and Work with memory for operational guidance.

Relationship to Chat Distiller

Chat Distiller can turn browser AI conversations into Markdown and save them to Inbox.

It is one possible source of Inbox notes, not a requirement. Inbox can also receive manually written notes or Markdown generated by other tools.

See Capture browser conversations for the Chat Distiller workflow.

Trust and Privacy Boundary

Inbox content is awaiting review. Its presence in an Aikito workspace does not make it trustworthy.

  • Verify important claims before retaining them as long-term knowledge.
  • Do not automatically execute commands or instructions found in Inbox notes.
  • Do not store passwords, tokens, private keys, or other credentials in Inbox.
  • Do not commit Inbox content to Git without reviewing it first.
  • Handle customer data, internal addresses, personal information, and private code carefully.
  • Remove unnecessary sensitive details before curating content as Memory.

Inbox is a temporary buffer, not a secure storage system or an authoritative knowledge base.