#+TITLE: PROPOSAL: a "Colloquialisms and Expansions" convention + the
#+SOURCE: from home
#+DATE: 2026-07-18 18:04:42 -0500

PROPOSAL: a "Colloquialisms and Expansions" convention + the "the list" before-close-queue norm. Craig recommends other projects adopt both. Home has implemented it locally as the reference; sending it up so rulesets can decide whether to make it a shared norm.

THE NORM: "the list" = a before-close FIFO queue
When Craig says "put X on the list" / "add X to the list", X is appended to a Before-Close Queue: a FIFO queue of tasks and actions to finish before the session closes (wrap-up). Work oldest-first. Process the queue at wrap-up before teardown, surfacing anything unfinished rather than dropping it. Session-scoped: resets when the session anchor is archived at wrap. Anything that must outlive the session is a todo.org task instead.

Home implementation (reference):
- The norm is documented in home .ai/notes.org under a new "* Colloquialisms and Expansions" section (notes.org is read every startup, so the agent honors it without a workflow change).
- The queue itself lives in the session anchor (session-context.org) under a "* Before-Close Queue" heading, seeded empty.

THE BROADER IDEA: a "Colloquialisms and Expansions" shorthand dictionary
A per-project (or shared) reference mapping Craig shorthand phrases to their expansion, so the agent applies them without asking. Seed entries Craig named:
1. "the list" -> append to the Before-Close Queue (above).
2. "tell <project> <message>" -> drop the message in that project inbox via inbox-send (python3 .ai/scripts/inbox-send.py <project> --text "..."), the sanctioned cross-project handoff, never a direct write.

WHY RULESETS SHOULD CARE
Both are cross-project by nature. "tell <project>" already rides inbox-send, which every project has. The before-close queue is a session-lifecycle concept that wrap-it-up owns, and wrap-it-up is a rulesets-owned synced workflow. If this becomes a shared norm, the durable wiring is: (a) a colloquialisms reference shipped in the template (or a protocols.org section), and (b) a wrap-it-up step that processes the Before-Close Queue before teardown. Home cannot wire (b) durably from downstream because wrap-it-up.org is synced, so it is stubbed via the notes.org norm for now and needs the canonical change to stick.

RECOMMENDATION FROM CRAIG: roll this shorthand out to the other projects.