# Side Quest > Park a mid-flow thought without breaking your main thread — capture it in one line, a background agent works it while you keep going, and results land in an inbox outside the chat, keeping main context clean both ways. Ledger-first (a parked thought can never be silently lost), draft-only (side agents never send, commit, or touch your working tree), receipts carry a one-line verdict. Fires without confirmation on explicit markers — "sq:", "side quest:", "background this", "park this", "not now but:", 支线 / 先别进主线 / 后台弄 — and on queue check-ins ("sq list", "sq retry", "sq kill", "what came back from my side quests?"). Inferred phrasings get a one-line confirm, defaulting to the main thread. NOT for blocking prerequisites the main task needs next, NOT for ten-second questions (answered inline), NOT for reminders (routed to a scheduler, never faked as work), NOT for merely setting a topic aside with no work attached (这个先放一边), NOT a way to send or do anything irreversible. - Skill: `m1nga/side-quest` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 3 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add m1nga/side-quest` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/m1nga/side-quest/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: AI & ML - Author: m1nga (https://skillmd.com/u/m1nga) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/m1nga/side-quest --- # Side Quest A thought that arrives mid-flow has two bad exits: chase it (lose the thread) or suppress it (and risk losing it or returning to it repeatedly). This skill builds the third exit: park it in one line, keep working, and collect the finished work at your next natural break. **The trust contract, before any mechanics:** a parked thought can never be silently lost, and a completion mark can never lie. The moment either breaks once, the user's mind stops releasing thoughts and the tool is dead. Every rule below serves that contract; when in doubt, protect the contract, not the feature. ## Step 1 — Capture and triage (≤5 seconds of the user's attention) Explicit markers fire immediately, no questions: `sq:` / `side quest:` / `background this` / `park this` / `not now but:` / 支线 / 先别进主线 / 后台弄. Inferred phrasings ("btw can you also…", "哦对了那个…回头弄", "…anyway keep going") get ONE line — "→ background as a side quest? (default: handle it now in-thread)" — and ambiguity resolves to the main thread. Capture never asks a second question. Before dispatching, triage the thought — most "side quests" are something else: | Shape | Tell | Route | |---|---|---| | Ten-second question | You can answer confidently in one short line | Answer inline in brackets, no dispatch, no file — ceremony here is self-parody | | Blocking prerequisite | "first / before we continue / 先" or it references the artifact being edited; the main task's next step depends on the answer | Stays in the main thread — backgrounding it means the main line proceeds on an unverified assumption | | Backfill quest | The answer feeds a pending main-thread decision | Dispatch, but declare: "conclusion (≤3 lines) will return to this thread; details to inbox" — a vetoable default, not a question | | Reminder | There is no work product, only a time ("submit readings tomorrow 10am") | Route to the scheduler/reminders if available; receipt says "reminder set, not a task". Never manufacture fake work for it; no time given → default 'before end of day' and say so in the receipt; no scheduler available → ledger it as 'reminder — NOT scheduled, recorded only' and hand the text back | | Life-size decision | "should I kill project X" | Receipt: "that's a decision, not a task — it deserves its own conversation." A background agent must not settle it from one sentence; if the user asked to park it (先别打断), capture and queue it — do not open the discussion now | | Resident job | It changes ground the main session stands on (its config, rules, deps, git state) | Never execute live. Deliver a diff/plan to the inbox, to be applied at a session boundary | | Quest about the main line itself | "sq: check whether our current approach is over-engineered" | Surface it: "this questions the current approach — discuss now, or truly background?" (the one place a question is allowed, and it happens pre-dispatch, in the main window) | | Deprioritization | "这个先放一边 / let's park this topic" with NO work requested — there is nothing to deliver | Verbal ack only; no dispatch, no ledger entry | | Quest about this conversation | "sq: summarize what we did" — the object is the transcript itself, which side agents never receive | Cannot background; run inline at the next boundary (defer to conclude-rounds if installed) | | Actionable with side effects | "email X / open a PR / file the ticket" | Dispatch as DRAFT-only — the deliverable is the loaded gun, never the fired shot | | True side quest | ≥2 minutes of independent work, no main-thread dependency, no side effects | Dispatch (below) | Multiple quests in one message ("sq×3: …") = one merged ledger entry set, one combined confirmation line. ## Step 2 — Ledger first (write-ahead; the non-negotiable) BEFORE spawning anything, append to the inbox's `_INBOX.md`: ``` | date-time | user's words, VERBATIM | brief (1 line) | state | ``` States: `captured → dispatched → done | failed | partial | queued`. Every terminal state produces a receipt. If a session dies, orphaned `dispatched` entries are announced the next time this skill loads (any sq marker, "sq list", or an inbox mention) — after reconciling with the inbox first: inspect any deliverable against the stored brief and check available agent status. A file alone may be a partial write: mark done only when its content and completion evidence satisfy the brief; otherwise preserve it as partial or keep a live dispatch running. If agent status is unavailable, record that uncertainty before retrying. Announcing a false failure breaks the same contract as silence. A quest may never end without a durable trace. The verbatim words are sacred: never retitle the user's thought; they find it by their own words, not by your summary. ## Step 3 — The brief (curated context, not zero context) The laziest real utterances are deictic — "this pattern", "that chart lib", "刚才第三段". A background agent given only the raw words will guess, and confidently. So the MAIN agent — the one holding the conversation — pays the serialization cost, never the user: - Resolve every pronoun and reference into a **self-contained brief, ≤5 lines**: the thought itself, what it refers to (named explicitly), what the user was doing, and the expected shape of the deliverable. - For repo/code quests, add a **static environment fingerprint** (≤10 lines: cwd, branch, stack facts from the project's own docs). Environment facts are not contamination; conversation history is. The side agent receives the brief and fingerprint ONLY — never the transcript. - The confirmation line echoes the brief's one-line reading, not the raw words — echo-as-verification, no question asked: `⚡ sq #4 "check webhook retry dedup (billing service, src/hooks)" — say "撤"/"cancel" to pull it back.` Folder names, file names, and ALL receipt/confirmation templates follow the conversation's language (the cancel word too: 撤 for Chinese, cancel for English). - `sq (isolated): …` forces a zero-brief dispatch for the rare quest the user wants fully sealed. If the reference cannot be resolved from context, do NOT ask — ledger it with the note "context insufficient; interpreted literally" and dispatch the literal reading. A wrong draft plus an honest note beats an interrogation. ## Step 4 — Execution rules (for the side agent) **Rule transport:** the side agent never reads this file — every dispatch prompt embeds Step 4's rules verbatim beneath the brief. A rule not in the prompt does not exist for the side agent. - **Draft-only, iron rule.** No sends, no publishes, no PRs/issues, no installs into shared environments, no purchases, no deletions — anywhere, ever. An actionable quest ships as a draft whose first line is `DRAFT — NOT SENT / NOT APPLIED`. The trigger word requests relief, not authority. - **Workspace law.** Never touch the user's working tree, git state, config, or anything the main session stands on. Repo quests run in a fresh `git worktree` (placed under `~/side-quests/worktrees/`, never inside the user's repo) from a clean ref; the deliverable is a branch name plus one merge command. Writes are permitted only inside the inbox directory and the quest worktree. - **Assume forward, assumptions on top.** No questions back — make the call, and open the deliverable with an ASSUMPTIONS block (≤5, each with "if wrong → discard section N"). When confidence is genuinely low, ship two small versions or an honest partial — never dress a guess as a completion. - **Output is proportional to input.** A two-word quest gets at most one page. No unrequested expansions; over-delivery raises the cost of opening the inbox, and an unopened inbox kills the tool. - **Run cheap and polite.** Default to a lighter model/effort than the main thread; at most 2 quests run concurrently (others wait as `queued`); side quests must never starve the main session's rate limits — the first dispatch each session notes once: "runs in background — shares your usage limits." ## Step 5 — Receipts (buffered, honest, verdict-bearing) - Dispatch confirmation: one fixed-format line, immediately (Step 3's echo). - Completion/failure receipts **never interrupt**: they queue silently and attach to the next natural boundary — the assistant's next reply after the user speaks. Never mid-generation, never as a standalone ping. If the harness forces a render turn when a background result arrives, output nothing beyond a minimal one-line ack. - A receipt carries: the user's verbatim words, a **one-line verdict**, and the highest-risk assumption: `✅ sq "stripe retries dedup?" — yes, dedupes on event_id (webhook.ts:41); assumed billing-service repo. Note in inbox.` Answer-shaped quests (yes/no, a number, a flag) are CLOSED by the receipt line itself; the file is optional. - Failures are receipts too: `⚠️ sq "X" failed (rate limit) — your words are safe in _INBOX.md; say "sq retry" to redispatch.` - `sq list` shows the queue with states; `sq kill ` cancels; `sq redo "": ` redispatches with the stored brief plus the correction — no re-explaining. ## Step 6 — Inbox and resurfacing (anti-graveyard) - Default location `~/side-quests/` — never colonize the Desktop uninvited; the user may configure any folder (stored in `~/side-quests/config.md`). Folder names, file names, and ALL receipt/confirmation templates follow the conversation's language (the cancel word too: 撤 for Chinese, cancel for English). - Files are named `YYMMDD--.md`, never agent-invented titles, never bare timestamps. - Deliverables always land inside the inbox (a `staging/` subfolder for files meant to move elsewhere); the receipt includes the one-line move command — writing to user-specified locations outside the inbox stays with the user or the main thread. - Deliverable header, fixed: verbatim words · captured-at + what the main thread was · TL;DR ≤3 lines · ASSUMPTIONS · suggested next step. The reader decides in one screen whether to read on. - `_INBOX.md` is the living index (date | words | state | three-word result | file). At the skill's next load in a new session — a natural boundary, not an interruption — if unread results exist, print a quiet one-line-per-item digest with ages, plus "say 'archive all' to clear". No unread counters mid-session, no guilt language, no reminders that interrupt work: the inbox must be there when the user wants it, never demand attention for itself. - Results untouched for 7 days move silently to `archive/` (marked in the index, never deleted). The pile must not be able to grow into a reproach. ## Degraded environments - **No background-agent capability** (some engines/harnesses): capture, triage, ledger, and brief still run in full — they are the product's core. The quest sits as `queued`; offer "run it inline at your next break, or leave it queued". Never pretend it is running. - **No disk access**: emit the ledger line and brief as a copyable block and say where to save it. Never drop a thought silently. ## Boundaries - The dispatch turn belongs to the main thread: acknowledge in one line and continue the user's actual work — never let parking a thought become the interruption it exists to prevent. - This skill is not a scheduler, not a to-do app, and not a way to launder irreversible actions through a background agent. - If the completion mark's honesty ever conflicts with looking productive, honesty wins. A trustworthy ledger of unfinished quests beats a gallery of confident garbage.