Reflexes

Overview

By the time you sit down with your coffee, something has already read the night's mail. A reflex is what runs by itself: when something arrives, the reflex for that kind reads it and works out what it might mean — and then stops, because everything it produces is a proposal .

What it applies is the same judgement these docs teach you. It asks which node the item hangs on , searches what you already keep before it proposes anything new, and leaves routine alone. A reflex is your filing judgement running ahead of you — which is why teaching it is worth more than any other setting.

Three come with every account, switched on:

• Email triage — reads arriving threads.
• Calendar triage — reads arriving and rescheduled events.
• Signal triage — reads what other systems push in.

Where they live

Each built-in is edited with the channel it runs on, not in a list of its own: email triage under Settings → Email , beneath the mailboxes it reads; calendar triage under Calendar ; signal triage under Integrations , beneath the address other systems push to. Connecting a channel and deciding what happens to what arrives on it are two halves of one question.

Basics

Teach one

Each reflex has an instruction box that takes plain sentences, and they apply from the next item that arrives. It already knows the general rules — what earns a node, what hangs where — so what belongs here is what it cannot work out: your exceptions, and your habits.

• Email triage — "mail from the school is Family, and hangs on the school node", "never draft a reply to a newsletter".
• Calendar triage — "the Tuesday sync never needs a task", "interviews always get a prep block, due the day before".
• Signal triage — "alerts from staging need nothing", "a GitHub issue hangs on the project it names".

Your dismissals write the instructions. A proposal you dismiss for the same reason every week is one sentence here — that is the loop that makes month three quieter than week one. And keep the boundary with context : an instruction says what to do on this channel; what is true about you everywhere belongs in the note every run reads.

Switch one off

Turning a reflex off stops the automatic run. You can still ask for one by hand on any item — an archive is a verdict on what you saw, not a refusal to look again.

Know what it may touch

A reflex carries scopes: what it may read, and what it may propose. Read access covers what it needs to judge with — your nodes, your mail, your calendar, your context note. There is no scope that lets it change something without asking, because a write is a proposal here.

A built-in's scopes are fixed to what its channel needs, which is why its page offers a switch and an instruction box and nothing else. A reflex you write yourself, under Settings → Thinking , is where you choose them.

FAQ

Can I make my own reflex?

Yes, under Settings → Thinking , where you choose its trigger, its instructions and what it may touch. The built-in three are what an account starts with, and teaching those is still where most of the room to move is.

Why did nothing happen for an item?

Proposing nothing is an answer. Routine rhythm — a daily standup, a block you made for yourself, a newsletter — is read and deliberately left alone.

Where do I see what a run did?

On the item's own page as a change-set, and in your Inbox as a marker on its row. The run itself is a conversation you can open and question.