Check agent run files before cleanup

The run is finished. Its writing remains beside a suggestion to clean up. Before agreeing, read beyond the end of that run: a later task may still need a file it left behind.

The useful question is what happens to the writing next. A file can belong to finished work as something produced and to unfinished work as something needed. Reading only the first relationship leaves the second unexamined.

The passages use an invented Jane Doe with invented Doe file names. Read the prose without carrying out its described work; every imagined file stays untouched. Wondering about .md? Read this introduction to that ending.

Pin down what the cleanup suggestion includes

A suggestion such as "clear the run files" gives you too little to judge. Read for the particular files it includes. Otherwise, your agreement could concern a different set from the one the writer had in mind.

Consider this invented note:

Jane Doe is considering Doe-passages.md, Doe-scratch.md and Doe-questions.md for cleanup after an agent run ended. The later Doe ending task needs Doe-passages.md to supply the passages it will discuss. Doe-scratch.md held temporary phrasing used only during the finished run, and the later task says it needs no text from that file. Doe-questions.md has no stated later use, and Jane Doe has yet to decide whether its questions are still needed. She keeps all three files untouched while considering the suggestion.

The proposed set contains Doe-passages.md, Doe-scratch.md and Doe-questions.md. Start your reading with those names in that order. The ending task then names Doe-passages.md as an input; the note describes Doe-scratch.md as temporary phrasing with no text needed by that task; Doe-questions.md remains undecided.

That paragraph gives you different reasons to pause over the same cleanup suggestion. Avoid letting the shared connection to a finished run flatten those differences. Read what is said about each file's further use before treating the group as disposable.

Follow the file into the task that needs it

The Doe ending task needs the passages in Doe-passages.md. Its need appears after the proposed cleanup set, so reading only the opening sentence would miss it. Follow the file name into the later task's description and read the purpose given there.

For your own reading, distinguish a mention from a use. A later task might merely discuss an earlier file, or it might need that file's text to do its work. Examine the sentence around the name for the relationship being stated. A name alone leaves that relationship open.

In the invented note, the purpose is explicit: Doe-passages.md supplies passages for the Doe ending task to discuss. That makes it a retained input in this reading. The earlier run's ending gives no reason to dismiss the later task's stated need.

These short quotations are prose to consider. Another way of enclosing passages appears in the Markdown code-block discussion; the imagined scene here calls for reading alone.

Read temporary use without enlarging the claim

Doe-scratch.md held phrasing used only during the finished run, and the later task needs no text from it. That wording supports reading the file as a disposable intermediate for the work described. Jane Doe still keeps it untouched while she considers the suggestion.

Keep the reach of that reading narrow. A statement about what one later task needs does not tell you what every possible future task will need. Before agreeing to a real cleanup suggestion, a person needs to confirm that the described use is enough to settle the file's purpose.

The word temporary, by itself, would leave more to ask. Temporary for whom, and through which piece of work? Read the explanation of use beside the label. A label does not cancel a later task that still needs the writing.

This is a judgment about whether an intermediate has served its purpose. It gives no instruction for changing or removing a file. The person considering cleanup retains that decision after reading the named consumers.

Leave uncertain use with a person

Doe-questions.md has no stated later use, and Jane Doe has not decided whether its questions remain needed. Those facts leave its purpose unresolved. The note ends with every file kept untouched, including this one.

Silence about later use is weaker than a statement that a file's temporary purpose has ended. You may have read an incomplete account. Keep the uncertain file while asking who still needs its writing and for what task.

Use the particular file name in that question so the person can answer about the writing at issue. The article about Markdown names deals with choosing them; here, you follow names already present in the prose.

Return to the cleanup suggestion with the differences intact: a stated later input, a described intermediate awaiting a person's confirmation, and a file whose use remains unsettled. A finished run supplies the occasion for this reading. The later use of each file supplies the reason for keeping it or leaving its disposition undecided.

Where Sashmark fits

For Sashmark, a desktop v1 remains in development, planned for reading Markdown and for editing its text. That app will contain no AI.