Note → Automation

Write down how you want something handled next time, and the stack offers to do it for you.

notes/process.md: Next time I have a business idea, look up competitors and do a full market analysis, TAM included, so I know whether it's worth building.

A minute after you stop typing, your phone says: When I write down a new business idea, I can look up competitors; do a market analysis with TAM; say whether it's worth building. To build it, move ai/proposed/business_idea_research.md into notes/automations/. Move it, and a moment later: Automation built.

After that, each business idea you write is researched. Your phone gets the verdict first: favorable, unfavorable, or already done, by these people. The full analysis, with sources, is in ai/automations/business_idea_research/.

• Needs Core plus a chat model (Model endpoints). With no model it does nothing.
• Reads the web through Firecrawl when enabled. Without it, web steps come back as "where to look".

The proposal is a migration

ai/proposed/ gets a decree migration for the develop machine: what you want, not code.

• Overview: what you asked for
• Outcome: what starts it, what it produces, where results go
• Constraints: what it must not do
• Acceptance Criteria: how you'd know it works

Edit it in plain words before accepting. It stays the automation's desired state.

How it works

Step	Machine	What happens
A note settles	note_watch	The file handler for notes/**/*.md runs it a minute after the last save. One model call asks two things: is there a standing instruction here ("next time…", "whenever…"), and is this note the event an automation you accepted is waiting for?
A standing instruction	automation_propose	The model writes the migration, and you are told. Nothing is built.
You accept	reconcile	Moving the file to notes/automations/<name>.md files it as .decree/migrations/A<stamp>-<name>.md, which the daemon runs.
It is built	develop	The model reads the migration and answers with the trigger and the steps. develop writes .decree/machines/<name>.yml and .decree/scripts/<name>.sh and the trigger: a note event (note_watch matches your notes against it), a file handler in .decree/handlers.yml, or a schedule in .decree/cron/<name>.md. It must pass decree check and the trigger's own rules (a file trigger never matches its own output). A failed check is undone and shown to the model once more; a second failure reaches your phone like any failed run.
It runs	<name>	Its trigger starts it. It writes its results to ai/automations/<name>/<date>-<note>.md and sends their first lines to ntfy.

Research on the web, with Firecrawl

With Firecrawl on (EXIST_IS_AI_FIRECRAWL=true), automations can search and read the web, with no API key. Each search returns the pages' text. The steps develop writes for the example:

steps() {
    local sources
    sources="$(web_search "$(head -1 <<<"$NOTE") competitors" 5
               web_search "$(head -1 <<<"$NOTE") market size TAM" 5)"
    echo "## Verdict"
    ask "Favorable, unfavorable, or already done (by whom). One line, then why. \
Use only the sources below; cite URLs." "$NOTE

$sources"
    echo "## Existing solutions"
    ask "List who already does this, with what they charge. Cite URLs." "$sources"
    echo "## Market"
    ask "TAM, SAM and SOM, each with its source and how it was worked out." "$NOTE

$sources"
}

• web_search and web_read come from automation/lib/firecrawl.sh; any decree script can use them. With Firecrawl off, develop refuses steps that use them.
• The verdict comes first because the first lines are what reach your phone.

Changing or removing one

• Edit the file in notes/automations/ and develop rebuilds the automation to match.
• Delete it and the machine, script, trigger and migration are removed.
• Don't edit .decree/ directly; it's rebuilt from that file.

What it can do, and what to read first

• A built automation is a decree machine. The model writes only its steps function; the frame (automation/lib/automations/run.sh) gives it the triggering note or file, ask (one chat model answer), web_search and web_read, curl and jq.
• Steps that need you (pay, sign up, send, decide) come back under "For you".
• It runs unattended with access to your workspace and the stack's services. Read .decree/scripts/<name>.sh in code-server.
• A name decree already uses is refused, so it can't replace an existing machine.
• develop uses Claude when the automation container is signed in, otherwise the chat model. Built automations can then hand a step to Claude too.
• Your notes are read-only to the automation container, so nothing it reads can rewrite them.
• For bigger automations, ask Claude in code-server instead.