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Reading

Listing events is arithmetic, and turning a capture into signals is judgment (115). millpond does the arithmetic. A model runs in two places only: a reader, which writes a capture’s signals, and a curation session, which gives each signal its move. Each is a Claude session working through millpond’s tools.

The tools

millpond serves its tools over MCP as millpond mcp:

ToolDoes
signalsLists signals by state, source, age, capture or subject.
captureReads a capture and its raw material.
readWrites a capture’s signals. millpond refuses one whose excerpt does not appear verbatim in the capture’s raw material.
movesWrites a batch of moves in one commit.
itemsLists items with their signals, briefs and sends.
briefWrites an item’s brief.
sendSends an item to flume as a fix or a change, or an item that asks a question to a sounding.

A session reaches the inbox through these tools and nothing else. It never edits a record file, so every write passes millpond’s checks and takes the inbox’s lock.

Two paths to a signal

Captured once, by key Own excerpt? the line says so yes: a release no: a meeting One signal at once, cut at a line Unread charges a reader Reader session excerpts checked verbatim Unmoved signals oldest first, for curation its signals
A release is its own excerpt, so millpond writes its one signal as it lands. A meeting is not, so it waits unread until a reader session writes its signals. From there both take the same path.

A signal carries its capture, a kind from a fixed set (constraint, ask, question, commitment, reaction), who asserted it, its subject tags, the assertion in a sentence, the verbatim excerpt with its position, and the claims it argues with when any exist. A signal never changes once written (113).

A reader

A reader takes unread captures oldest first and writes their signals with read (113). Three things start one:

  • the user, with the read skill in a Claude Code session;
  • the inbox’s tick, with the command its settings name;
  • crew’s reader, in an inbox crew keeps.

The reader’s instructions are the inbox’s data (119): what makes a signal, how to name a speaker a transcript leaves unnamed, and the extraction rules the existing meeting pipeline wrote down. Changing how an inbox reads is an edit to its data, never to millpond.

A meeting recorded twice gives two captures, since each recording has its own key. Its reader reads them together and writes the second’s signals once.

The verbatim check

read refuses a signal whose excerpt does not appear verbatim in its capture’s raw material. The check holds a reader to quoting: an excerpt is the source’s own words, so a person who follows the pointer finds them where the signal says they are.