- Home
- Skills
- Productivity
- Second Brain Inbox Triage — CODE Framework Skill
Works with the AI tools you already use
Second Brain Inbox Triage — CODE Framework Skill
Ideas, links, screenshots, voice memos, PDFs — they pile up until opening your notes app feels like a chore you'll never finish.
$9
Second Brain Inbox Triage — CODE Framework Skill
Example session with this skill installed
I want to run an inbox triage session using the second-brain-inbox-triage skill.
Config
- Inbox path:
./Inbox - Trash policy: move to
_Trash/folder, 30-day retention - Batch size: 20
- Bucket root:
./SecondBrain
My inbox currently contains the following 18 items:
- Email screenshot: "50% off Figma Pro — offer expired last Friday" — I saved this two weeks ago, the deal is dead.
- Note: "Reply to Sam confirming Thursday lunch at 12:30" — Sam is waiting on my confirmation.
- Bookmark: "12 CSS Grid layout patterns for dashboards" — saved for design inspiration, no immediate use.
- Reminder: "Check tire tread depth before winter" — needs a garage visit, no deadline yet.
- File: "2024_tax_return_final.pdf" — filed and closed months ago, keeping for records.
- Note: "Q4 board deck — first draft needed by Nov 14" — 30-slide deck, multi-day effort.
- Voice memo transcript: "Idea — internal newsletter for the design team" — no owner, no date, no outcome, just a spark.
- Note: "Buy milk and eggs on the way home" — trivial errand.
- Article: "Advanced TypeScript generics explained" — bookmarked for a future refactor, no obligation.
- Screenshot: "Team offsite photos from June" — no action, historical.
- Note: "Pay the electricity bill — due Oct 20" — recurring monthly obligation.
- Email: "LinkedIn recruiter pitch — Senior PM at FintechCo" — I'm not job hunting, irrelevant.
- Note: "Draft a one-paragraph bio for the conference website" — 10-minute task, my slot is due this week.
- File: "Old_project_alpha_archive.zip" — project shipped in 2023, no longer active.
- Bookmark: "The best running shoes of 2026 — review roundup" — ongoing fitness interest.
- Note: "Update emergency contact info in HR portal" — 5-minute task, policy requires it.
- Duplicate note: "Q4 board deck — outline needed" — same project as item #6, captured twice.
- File: "corrupted_scan_003.pdf" — won't open, no idea what it is.
Please triage this batch now, one pass, and give me the Triage Report when done. Confirm the effective config and the four decisions before you start.
- Read your context and instructions
- Compiled the second brain inbox
- Generated the document
Pre-flight: effective config
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Inbox | ./Inbox (18 items, under the 200-item threshold, so no batch-size discrepancy) |
| Trash policy | Move to _Trash/, 30-day retention (nothing is permanently deleted) |
| Batch size | 20, so all 18 items fit in one batch |
| Bucket root | ./SecondBrain (Projects / Areas / Resources / Archives) |
| Timebox | 25 min, 5 questions max, confidence threshold 0.80 |
| Mode | Dry run. Your items are described in chat, not confirmed as files on disk, so every disposition below is a proposal and nothing has been moved. |
The four decisions (first "yes" wins):
Trash (no future value) →
Do (actionable, under 2 minutes) →
Archive (historical, no action; lands in the Archives bucket) →
File (everything else, into Projects, Areas or Resources).
Inbox Triage Report — Batch 1
Mode: Dry run
Inbox: ./Inbox
Items in batch: 18
Duration: Not timed (simulated; the scan was routing-only, with no deep reading)
Items remaining: 0 (proposed)
Disposition Summary
| Decision | Count | % |
|---|---|---|
| Trash | 3 | 16.7% |
| Do | 1 | 5.6% |
| Archive | 3 | 16.7% |
| File | 11 | 61.1% |
| Total | 18 | 100% |
CODE Distribution
| Bucket | Count |
|---|---|
| Projects | 2 |
| Areas | 4 |
| Resources | 5 |
| Archives | 3 |
The Archives row counts every item routed by the Archive decision. They are the same destination.
Disposition by Item
| # | Item | Decision | Destination |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Figma 50% off screenshot | Trash | _Trash/ |
| 2 | Reply to Sam, Thursday lunch | Do | Done inline, source deleted |
| 3 | 12 CSS Grid patterns | File | Resources/Design |
| 4 | Tire tread depth check | File | Areas/Car maintenance |
| 5 | 2024_tax_return_final.pdf | Archive | Archives/Finances |
| 6 | Q4 board deck | File | Projects/Work |
| 7 | Design team newsletter idea | File (flagged) | Resources/Ideas |
| 8 | Buy milk and eggs | File | Areas/Home |
| 9 | Advanced TypeScript generics | File | Resources/Engineering |
| 10 | June offsite photos | Archive | Archives/Team |
| 11 | Pay electricity bill | File | Areas/Home |
| 12 | LinkedIn recruiter pitch | Trash | _Trash/ |
| 13 | Conference bio paragraph | File | Projects/Work |
| 14 | Old_project_alpha_archive.zip | Archive | Archives/Projects |
| 15 | Running shoes roundup | File | Resources/Fitness |
| 16 | Update emergency contact in HR portal | File | Areas/Work |
| 17 | Duplicate "Q4 board deck — outline" | Trash | _Trash/ (merged into #6) |
| 18 | corrupted_scan_003.pdf | File (anomaly) | Resources/Unsorted |
Completed Inline (< 2 min)
- Reply to Sam. Proposed text: "Hi Sam, confirming Thursday lunch at 12:30. See you then!" I can't send it from here, so you'd send it and then the source note gets removed.
Filed
| Item | Bucket | Next Action |
|---|---|---|
| 12 CSS Grid patterns | Resources/Design | none |
| Tire tread check | Areas/Car maintenance | Visit the garage and measure tread depth this weekend. |
| Q4 board deck | Projects/Work | Draft the outline for the 30-slide deck (45-min block); first draft due Nov 14. |
| Newsletter idea | Resources/Ideas | Re-triage — ambiguous |
| Milk and eggs | Areas/Home | Buy milk and eggs on the way home. |
| TypeScript generics | Resources/Engineering | none |
| Electricity bill | Areas/Home | Pay the electricity bill before Oct 20. |
| Conference bio | Projects/Work | Write the one-paragraph bio (10 min) and submit it this week. |
| Running shoes roundup | Resources/Fitness | none |
| Emergency contact | Areas/Work | Update emergency contact in the HR portal (5 min). |
| corrupted_scan_003.pdf | Resources/Unsorted | Re-triage — unreadable; rescan or ask the sender. |
Notes on the less obvious calls
- #8 can't be done in 2 minutes because it needs a store trip, so it isn't a Do.
#11 is a recurring obligation that needs your payment portal. If you can pay it right now, tell me and I'll convert it to a Do.
#13 and #16 take over 2 minutes. #13 has a deadline this week, so it's a Project. #16 has no date, so it's an Area.
Flagged for Your Decision
Design team newsletter idea (#7) has no owner, date or outcome, so it fails the Project test. Options:
A) keep it in Resources/Ideas (proposed), or
B) commit to it and name an owner and date, which would make it a Project.
Anomalies
Duplicate: #17 ↔ #6 (same Q4 board deck). #17 goes to _Trash/ and its "outline" ask is folded into #6's next action.
- Corrupted/unreadable: #18 won't open. I made no guess at its contents and did not trash it.
- Orphaned attachments: none.
Metrics
- Trash rate: 16.7% (target 20–40%, slightly below)
- Do rate: 5.6% (target 10–25%, below)
- File rate: 61.1% (target 40–60%, marginally above)
- Ambiguity rate: 5.6% (target under 10%)
- Caveat: with 18 items (under 25) these numbers are noisy.
Quality Gate (§9)
- Every item received exactly one disposition: pass, 18 of 18 (3+1+3+11).
- No item remains in the inbox from this batch: pass (proposed; nothing moved in a dry run).
- Every filed item has the full metadata schema:
pass (proposed). Each gets title, bucket, created, triaged (2026-10-03), source and status once executed.
- Every Project and Area has a written
next_action: pass, all 6 are listed above. - No banned-generic filenames:
pass. I proposed descriptive names such as 2026-06 — Team offsite photos for the screenshot.
- Duplicates detected and resolved or flagged: pass (#6 and #17).
- Duration recorded in the report header: pass (recorded as "not timed" for a dry run).
- Destructive actions confirmed with the user:
pending. Trash moves to _Trash/ are reversible and match your policy, but nothing has run yet. I'll ask for an explicit OK on the first move at live run.
Next Step
Awaiting your decision on flagged item #7. Do you confirm this dry run so I can execute it as a live run? That requires the 18 items to exist as real files under ./Inbox. Any item I can't find will be reported as an anomaly rather than moved.
second-brain-inbox-triage-code-framework.pdf
PDF · document
Example file from a real run - the skill writes it into your workspace.
Connects securely to your tools. The creator never sees your data.
What you get
About this skill
Stop letting your inbox become a graveyard.
You capture faster than you process. Ideas, links, screenshots, voice memos, PDFs — they pile up until opening your notes app feels like a chore you'll never finish. That's not a discipline problem. It's a workflow problem.
Second Brain Inbox Triage is a drop-in Claude Code skill that does the hard part for you: it looks at every item in your inbox, applies one decisive rule, and routes it to the right home. No more "Maybe later" piles. No more re-reading the same note across three sessions. No more decision fatigue.
What it does The skill enforces a single, disciplined pass using the four-decision ladder — Trash → Do → Archive → File — and files every remaining item into exactly one of the CODE buckets:
Projects — short-term efforts with a finish line and a date
Areas — ongoing responsibilities you maintain forever
Resources — topics you want to reference again, with no obligation
Archives — items that are done, dead, or dormant
It obeys a two-minute rule, writes a real next_action for every Project and Area, detects duplicates, flags ambiguity instead of guessing, and emits a clean Triage Report after every batch so you can see exactly what happened.
Who it's for Knowledge workers with cluttered Notion, Obsidian, Apple Notes, or Roam inboxes
Founders and operators processing dozens of captures a day
GTD and PARA practitioners who want the theory turned into a runnable workflow
Anyone who has ever stared at a 300-item backlog and closed the app
What you get One production-grade SKILL.md file with YAML frontmatter, ready for Claude Code
15 sections covering purpose, decision logic, disambiguation rules, metadata schema, execution phases, interaction protocol, quality gate, anti-patterns, worked examples, metrics, troubleshooting, and configuration
Built-in safety rails: no silent deletion, no invented content, no skipped steps
A mandatory Quality Gate checklist that must be emitted with every batch
Live-run and dry-run modes so you can preview before anything moves
Why it's different Most "inbox zero" prompts tell Claude to organize your notes. This skill tells Claude exactly how to decide — with a first-match-wins ladder, explicit tiebreak rules, confidence thresholds, and a quality gate that fails the batch if any item was skipped. It's not a suggestion. It's a system.
Works with: Claude Code, Claude Skills, and any Claude agent that supports SKILL.md files.
Not for: summarization, task execution, or deep reading of documents. Those are separate skills. This one routes — fast, clean, and boring, exactly the way triage should be.
How to install
Works the same in every agent - Claude, Cursor, Codex, Copilot and 20+ more.
- 1
Download the ZIP
Free skills download straight away. Paid skills unlock right after purchase.
- 2
Unzip into your skills folder
Every agent reads skills from one folder on your machine. Drop the unzipped folder in there.
- 3
Ask your agent to use it
Restart the agent if it was already running. It picks the skill up automatically - no config needed.
Skills folder by agent
Click the path to copy it. Create the folder if it does not exist yet.
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be one of the first to try it. Every listed skill passes our trust checks below.
Security scanned
Passed our 8-point scan before listing
Fresh listing
Recently published to Agensi
30-day refund
Not a fit? Get your money back
Trust & safety
Security scanned
Verified clean today
- Passed all security checks, Safe to install