Main idea

Wanting an assistant to deposit what you designate into versioned Markdown files, and finding it only knows how to write into a spreadsheet, looks like a dead end: the available tool isn't the one you wanted.

The dead end comes from having conflated two functions. The exit point is the place the information leaves the tool from; the place of preservation is where it will live. Nothing requires them to be the same.

The spreadsheet then becomes an outbox: it doesn't have to be good, it only has to be reachable. A script takes over behind it and converts toward the intended destination.

Why it matters

The hard problem — getting a precise piece of information out of a flow — is solved by the exit point. The rest is transformation, and transformation is ordinary work.

It also changes the criterion of choice. You no longer look for the tool that fits the architecture, but for the one that is accessible; the quality of the storage is decided independently, and later.

Nuances and limits

The separation adds a link: an outbox never emptied becomes a graveyard, and the information has merely changed prison.

And a mediocre exit point imposes its constraints on what passes through — format, size, structure. It isn't neutral, only provisional.

Open questions

• Who empties the outbox, and how often, so that it stays a passage rather than a deposit?