email-capturelisted

# Email Capture > "The difference between a requirement and a preference is whether anyone will know > if you ship without it." > -- Adapted from Karl Wiegers, "Software Requirements" > "Every email thread is a negotiation. Requirements hide in the agreement, > not the conversation." ## Core Philosophy Email threads are lower-noise than meeting transcripts but structurally messier. Requirements are embedded in reply chains, buried under greetings and signatures, split across multiple messages, and sometimes contradicted in later replies. A change request buried in a forwarded attachment is still a requirement. This skill reads email threads and documents methodically — parsing by sender authority, chronological order, and message type — to extract requirements, decisions, commitments, and open questions with source attribution. Email content is often more decisive ("we need X by date Y") but also more fragmented (the final agreed version is in message 12 of a 15-message thread, not in message 1). **What this skill does:** Accepts pasted email thread text or a file path. Parses the thread to identify senders, dates, and message sequence. Extracts requirements, decisions, commitments, and open questions with source attribution. Flags contradictions between earlier and later messages. Produces a structured capture markdown with provisional `DRAFT-NNN` IDs. **What this skill does NOT do:** Access email accounts or inboxes (input is manual paste or file), synthesize require