Messages that only make sense together
(01) The problem
Twenty messages land in one morning, across email, Slack and WhatsApp. Read one at a time, each looks clear. But a later message cancels an earlier one. A quiet update is the first sign that checkout is broken. Traps like that show up only when the twenty are read together.
(02) What I built
I wrote software that reads the whole morning three times. The first time it sorts each message alone: decide, delegate, or ignore. The second time it reads all twenty against each other. That is where it changes its mind. The third time it writes the briefing, a reply for each message, and a flag for each thing to check.
The second picture is the real screen, on a made-up set of messages. The first is a drawing of what it reads. No real person appears in either.
(03) What went wrong
The screen showed no reply. Every step had said complete.
Messages were showing with no reply under them. The log said all three reads had finished. So I printed what the last one had actually sent back.
Each message now keeps both halves. How it was sorted, and its draft reply, joined by number. The briefing is read in whatever shape it comes. Every finished run prints what it got.
(04) What happened
On the test messages, all twenty come back with a reply. All seven hidden traps are caught.