Proposals

Overview

You open the invitation that arrived overnight and the thinking is already half done: a node for the meeting, a link to the client it recognised, a prep task due the day before. None of it has happened. A proposal is something your second brain worked out and has not done. Each time it sits down with something — a conversation, an arriving item — is a run , and everything one run worked out is bundled as a change-set — line by line, waiting. None of it is yours until you say so.

Proposals come from both directions — a chat you had, or a reflex , a run that starts by itself when something arrives, covered next — and they are decided the same way wherever they came from.

Basics

Accept or dismiss a line

Open the row and the change-set is in the sidebar, under Proposals — on an item's page, on a node's page, or in the chat that produced it. Every entry is its own decision, with the reason the run gave for it. Accepting writes that one thing; dismissing drops it and leaves the rest standing. It is a queue, not a deadline: nothing expires, and nothing is applied because you ignored it.

See a proposal before you decide

A proposed node, event or page is a real record, made straight away and flagged as pending: it is searchable, it draws on the calendar as a dashed block you cannot drag, a proposed page sits ghosted in the note, and it carries provisional wherever it appears. That is what lets a later run build on an earlier proposal instead of proposing the same node twice.

A change to something you already own — a due date moved, two nodes merged, a link removed — is not made in advance. It is described, and applied only when you accept it.

Ask for another look, or ask why

Run Triage from the item's actions to have it read again — that works on anything a reflex reads, including items you archived months ago. A run is an ordinary conversation, so you can also open it under Chats and reply: ask why it proposed something, or ask for something else. Whatever it does next lands in the same change-set you were already looking at.

What a run may do

• Create a node for the thing to hang on, and link the item to it.
• Relate that node to the client, project or person it concerns.
• Propose a task with a due date before the thing it prepares for.
• Propose an event when one is implied — travel time, a preparation block.
• Write a page — its findings land as a new page of the node's note, ghosted until you accept it, never as edits scattered through what you wrote.
• Draft a mail when there is genuinely something to ask.

Where a change-set waits

Under Proposals wherever it belongs: on the item's page in your Inbox , on the node it is about, or in the chat that produced it. In the Inbox it shows one of two ways:

• A wand on a row — the item it is about is already in the queue, so the marker sits on that row and you decide it on the item's own page.
• A row of its own — nothing arrived to hang it on (a chat about a node, or about nothing in particular), so it queues under the name of where it leads.

Archiving settles it. Archiving an item dismisses the change-sets still open on it, since you are saying you are done here — and a change-set row in the queue archives the same way, which is the same word for the same act. Archive is also the only bulk verb a change-set row answers to: linking or deleting a proposal means nothing, so those verbs step aside while one is selected.

Judging a change-set

A proposal is judged the way you judge your own filing, because it is your filing — a run applies the same tests you would. Read the reason on the line, then ask the question the reason claims to answer: would you have written this down yourself? Is the node hung on what the item is about, rather than on who appears in it? Accept what you would have done; dismiss what mints structure you did not ask for.

Dismissing is a full answer, but it teaches nothing by itself. The same proposal dismissed for the same reason every week is a sentence for the reflex's instruction box — that is where a dismissal becomes policy.

FAQ

What if I never look at what was proposed?

Nothing happens. Pending stays pending, and your graph is exactly what you accepted into it.

Why did it propose nothing?

Routine rhythm is not inbox work. A daily standup, a block you made for yourself or a company-wide broadcast is read and left alone on purpose.

Can my second brain do something without asking?

No. It never sends a mail, answers an invitation, or changes something you already own on its own. When a decision is needed it proposes a task and leaves the decision with you.

Do proposals expire?

No. It is a queue, not a deadline: pending stays pending until you accept or dismiss it.

What happens when a meeting is rescheduled?

The item returns to the queue and is read again. Pending proposals that no longer make sense are withdrawn and replaced; anything you already accepted stays and may get a proposed correction.

Why do some items have no Triage action?

Only mail, calendar items and signals have a reflex that reads them. A photo or a location is yours to file, so the action is hidden rather than offered and useless.