/correspondence -- Two-way threads with a person

A thread where turns alternate and a decision may be reached in the exchange. The distinguishing test is not the channel but whether anyone replied (CR-080).

Standalone skill -- works with any vault that has contact or project folders. Reads ops-config for folder conventions and strings.filename_keywords.correspondence.

Subcommands

/correspondence <input> (the default)

Record a thread. <input> is the pasted thread, or a path to a file containing it.

/correspondence help

Show the shapes table, the three rules, and the routing rule.

The three rules that make this shape different

These are not style preferences. Each one exists because flattening it loses information that cannot be recovered.

1. No participant list, ever

A meeting has participants. A thread has a sender and recipients, per turn. Writing **Deltagare:** A, B, C claims three people were in a conversation two people had.

Record turns with direction instead:

**Turer:** B → A (6/10 10:42) · A → B, kopia C (6/10 15:22) · B → A (6/10 15:52)

2. cc is informed, not engaged -- and may not own an action

From, To and Cc carry meaning. A person on cc was informed. Keep the roles separate in frontmatter, and only from and to may own an action item.

A cc recipient owning a task is almost always an attribution error. This is CR-015's attribution rule applied to a source where the evidence is actually present.

3. The record keeps the identity; the raw form is not kept

.transcripts/ is for transcripts. A pasted mail is not one. Writing one there is a finding, not a convention (CR-080 decision 6, answered 2026-10-01).

Three reasons, in order of weight: consent does not transfer (a mail is written by someone else, to the user, with an expectation about where it goes); the re-derivation argument is weaker than it looks (what matters is the figures and the decision, and both survive in the record); and widening a seal changes what its name means (CR-068).

State it in the file so a reader is not left wondering:

**Råmaterial:** behålls inte (CR-080). Avsändare, mottagare och datum står ovan.

Execution steps

Step 1: Identify the thread

The unit is the thread, not the message. A single message is usually too small to be worth a file.

The identity key is the References/In-Reply-To chain where available, not the subject line, which gets edited and reused. Working from a paste, reconstruct the chain from the quoted history and the timestamps.

Step 2: Find an existing file for this thread

Search the likely folders for a file whose thread key matches, or failing that, whose subject and participants match. A living document is appended to; a new thread gets a new file.

Step 3: Route by ärende, not by person

The subject of the thread decides the folder, not the sender. This inverts the default the meeting-routing table sets, so it must be stated rather than inherited.

• A thread with a supplier about a specific project belongs in the project
• A thread with the same supplier about terms belongs in their contact folder

A thread with one person can be entirely about a project; a project thread can have six participants who each have their own contact folder. Neither fact decides the folder.

Step 4: The gate -- one question, then go

Human-in-the-loop is the requirement, and an open-ended prompt is not a gate. Ask exactly one question:

Ny fil, eller uppdatering av <befintlig fil>?

That is the one decision the skill genuinely cannot make. Thread matching is a heuristic, and a wrong merge silently corrupts two records at once, while a wrong split is visible and cheap to fix. Default when in doubt: propose the new file, because that failure is recoverable.

Everything else -- folder, filename, participant roles -- is shown alongside as a proposal to override, not asked as a second question.

Step 5: Write or append

New material goes newest first, so the current state is at the top where a reader lands.

A correspondence file is a living document where a transcript is a frozen one. That difference propagates: a frozen file is written once and dated by its event; a living one needs a last-updated marker.

Step 6: Report

Name the file, the folder, and why that folder. If the thread was appended to an existing file, say which turns were added.

File format

Filename: YYMMDD-{strings.filename_keywords.correspondence}-<person>-<ämne>.md, where YYMMDD is the date of the first turn. The file keeps that name as it grows.

# Korrespondens: [one line on what the thread is about]

**Källa:** [channel and date; note if timestamps are missing from the source]
**Typ:** korrespondens (tvåvägs tråd, inte ett möte)
**Turer:** [sender → recipients (time)] · [sender → recipients (time)] · **[decision reached, or what is outstanding]**
**Senast uppdaterad:** YYMMDD
**Råmaterial:** behålls inte (CR-080). Avsändare, mottagare och datum står ovan.

---

## Sammanfattning

[What the exchange established. Two to four sentences. If a decision was reached *in* the
exchange, say so here -- that is the thing a thread can do that a one-way report cannot.]

## Nästa steg

| # | Åtgärd | Ägare | Prio | Deadline |
|---|--------|-------|------|----------|

[Only `from`/`to` participants may own a row. A cc recipient owning an action is an attribution
error -- see rule 2.]

## Turerna

### [YYMMDD HH:MM] [Sender] → [Recipients]

[What this turn said. Quote verbatim where the wording carries the meaning.]

## Bakgrund

[Prior context, and what the thread connects to elsewhere in the vault.]

What this is not

• Not a meeting. No participant list, no facilitator, no agenda.
• Not content. One-way incoming material -- a report, a newsletter, an automated digest -- has a sender but no exchange. That is CR-105's shape, handled by /ops process.
• Not a transcript. Nothing is recorded; nothing goes to .transcripts/.
• Not an archive of mail. The record carries the substance. The wire form is discarded by design, not by oversight.

Scope

Email, chat and message threads. The calendar half of CR-080 stays deferred -- recurrence, mutation after recording, and RSVP-as-attendance need their own pass.

Related CRs