# The Glue-Script Pattern (Chapter 10)

**Use when:** actions live in notes, mail, and trackers, and you move them between those homes by hand.

A glue script is the smallest automation that moves an item from one home to another: from meeting notes into the tracker, from the tracker into a draft email, from a mailbox rule into a folder. It does not think. It moves. Your review is the gate.

## The pattern, four parts

```
Source: [WHERE THE ITEM LIVES NOW. Notes file, mailbox, spreadsheet.]
Destination: [WHERE IT SHOULD LIVE. The tracker, a draft message, a folder.]
The move: [ONE RULE PER MOVE, STATED PLAINLY. "Rows with a deadline in
the notes file become action rows in the tracker, mapped column by
column."]
The gate: [WHAT YOU REVIEW BEFORE THE MOVE COUNTED. A diff, a preview,
a count. Nothing sends, files, or deletes without your eyes.]
```

## The discipline that keeps it boring

- One move per script. A script that reads, transforms, sends, and archives has four chances to surprise you; four scripts have four chances to be checked.
- Every move produces a count you can check against the source: 12 actions extracted, 12 rows added, 0 dropped. A count that does not match stops the script, not the record.
- The tracker is the only version of truth. A script that writes to two homes at once creates the reconciliation problem it was supposed to solve.
- The script never invents data. No guessed deadlines, no constructed names, no sentiment. Items that fail the rule go to a review pile, not a guess.
- If the tracker is shared, Chapter 15 habits apply before you trust it.

## Verify

You can replay yesterday's moves from memory: what moved, from where, to where, on whose review. When someone asks "who entered Tuesday's numbers," the answer is a demonstration, not a shrug.