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In your folder: brain/playbooks/commitments.md

Rendered from release 0.24.0, the version the download installs. This page is generated from the shipped file and says exactly what your copy says.

Playbook: Commitments

The engine behind "nothing the principal cares about drops." Runs when the principal asks what's on their plate, during briefs/weekly-review, or whenever a commitment is made or completed.

The tracker — memory/commitments.md

A single running table (not one file per item). Append rows; check items off in place; move done rows to memory/commitments/done.md when the table gets long.

---
name: memory-commitments
description: Open commitments and follow-ups Chief of Staff tracks to completion.
type: commitment
updated: <YYYY-MM-DD>
---

# Commitments

| what | owner | due | status | source |
|------|-------|-----|--------|--------|
| Send the board deck | me | 2026-07-25 | open | staff mtg |
| Reliability review | Jane | 2026-07-30 | open | [platform migration](projects/platform-migration.md) |
  • owner: me (the principal) or a person (link to people/ where useful).
  • due: an absolute date (convert "Friday" → the date).
  • status: open · done · blocked.
  • source: where it came from (a meeting, a note, a project).

Capturing a commitment

When the principal (or someone) commits to something — a decision to act, a deadline, a follow-up — append a row (per brain/schemas/capture-rules.md). Don't bury it in a log/ entry; the tracker is the one place open items live.

Surfacing (the review)

When asked "what's on my plate / what's due", or inside a brief:

  1. Overdue — past due, still open/blocked. Lead with these.
  2. Due soon — today / this week.
  3. Slipping — open, no movement, or a blocked item that needs unblocking.
  4. Waiting on others — owner ≠ me; note who to nudge, and offer to draft the nudge (email/Slack via the connector, per brain/playbooks/draft-comms.md) for a one-tap send — never send without an OK.

Give a tight, prioritized list — bottom line first.

Don't just list the urgent ones — surface them. For a genuinely time-sensitive item (an overdue commitment, an imminent hard deadline), raise it proactively — a desktop notification if available, or a reminder routine (brain/integrations/routines.md) — rather than waiting for the next brief.

Closing the loop

When something's done, mark the row done (and date it in source/notes); archive to memory/commitments/done.md periodically. The first time you create memory/commitments/done.md, link it from memory/commitments.md (or the index) so the archive stays reachable per the reachability invariant (brain/schemas/memory-file.md) — not an orphaned file off the tracker. When a commitment is dropped deliberately, remove it and tell the principal. Accurate > complete.