Remind

User preferences, learned lead times, and the active reminder list live in ~/Clawic/data/remind/ (see setup.md on first use, memory-template.md for file formats). If you have data at an old location (~/remind/, ~/clawic/remind/, or preferences stored inside this file's sections), move it to ~/Clawic/data/remind/.

When To Use

Remind = "Just a reminder that..." — surfacing something the human already knows, at the moment it becomes actionable.

• Planned events, deadlines, and commitments they set themselves
• Promises they made to other people — and other people's promises they must chase
• Recurring obligations easy to lose track of: taxes, renewals, bills, reviews
• Things they told you they were afraid to forget
• Not for new information (news, outages, price moves — that is alerting) and not for executing tasks on a schedule (that is scheduling)

The litmus test: could they have written it in their own calendar? Then it's a reminder. Did the world just change? That's an alert. If "just a reminder that..." reads unnaturally in front of the message, don't send it as one.

Quick Reference

Depth on demand: triggers.md what qualifies · timing.md lead times, ladder, quiet hours, timezones · phrasing.md writing the message · recurring.md repeating obligations · followup.md after it fires: acks, snooze, escalation, misses · learning.md reactions → preferences · setup.md first use · memory-template.md storage formats.

Core Rules

1. Only remind about what they already know. New information is an alert; the litmus test above decides. Misclassifying erodes trust in both channels.
2. Explicit beats learned beats default. "Remind me at 3pm" overrides every stored preference; a stored preference overrides timing.md; the defaults catch the rest. A one-off override never rewrites the category preference (learning.md).
3. The loop: detect → evaluate → remind → observe → confirm → store. Detect (triggers.md), evaluate against ~/Clawic/data/remind/preferences.md, remind while they can still act, observe the reaction, confirm before storing.
4. Signal ladder (canonical — every other file points here): explicit instruction → store (confirmed) immediately · 2 consistent observed reactions → store (pattern), propose the change · accepted proposal, or a 3rd consistent reaction → upgrade to (confirmed) · 1 contradicting reaction on a (confirmed) entry → downgrade to (pattern), re-observe.
5. Remind while acting is still possible. Lead counts back from when the action must start, not from the event: remind at = event time − process − transition − prep (worked example in timing.md).
6. One acknowledgment = done. Repeats read as nagging; Always entries are the only exception, and silence is not an acknowledgment (followup.md).
7. Never store without comment. Wrong guesses compound invisibly; propose in one line before writing anything (confirmed).
8. A working system sends fewer reminders each month, not more. Correct Skips are wins; let reactions promote categories, never your own eagerness.

Reminder Components

• What — the commitment, phrased as the action, not the event: "Leave by 2:15 for the 5pm flight", never "Flight at 5pm". If the reminder arrives when the action is no longer possible, the timing was wrong regardless of the event time.
• When — lead time before the action must start (timing.md)
• How — tone, length, and stage wording (phrasing.md); default: one line, what + when + the single next step

Output Gates

Run before every reminder goes out:

• Do they already know this? (No → it's an alert, not a reminder)
• Can they still act on it after this arrives? (No → apply followup.md late delivery; log the missed lead)
• Has this exact reminder — this occurrence, for recurring — been acknowledged? (Yes → drop unless in Always)
• Does a Skip entry, a stated exclusion, or quiet_hours cover it? (timing.md)
• Is it phrased as the action, not the event, with wording distinct from the previous stage? (phrasing.md)

Configuration

User-dependent variables. Defaults apply until the user states a preference; store them in ~/Clawic/data/remind/config.yaml.

Preference areas — customizable dimensions; a stated preference gets recorded in config.yaml and applied:

• Delivery & tone — register (casual/formal), length, emoji, language of reminders — affects phrasing.md defaults
• Proactivity — appetite for unprompted reminders from implicit detection — affects the offer-first rule in triggers.md
• Schedule shape — workday start/end, weekend policy for work items — affects Time-of-Day Rules in timing.md
• Exclusions — topics, projects, or blocks (focus time, meetings) where reminders never fire — feeds Skip and the Output Gates
• Adjacent systems — calendars or task apps already alerting them — categories those cover default to Skip (their alarm plus yours = double nag)

Per-category lead times are learned data, not config: they live in ~/Clawic/data/remind/preferences.md (memory-template.md for the format).

Traps

Related Skills

More Clawic skills, get them at https://clawic.com/skills/remind (install if the user confirms):

• alerts - New or urgent events they don't know about yet
• notify - Delivery mechanics: channels, batching, fatigue control
• schedule - Executing recurring tasks, not recalling them
• memory - Long-term storage beyond reminder preferences

Feedback

• If useful, star it: https://clawic.com/skills/remind
• Latest version: https://clawic.com/skills/remind

Part of Clawic, the verified skill library. Get this skill: https://clawic.com/skills/remind.