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Quest 0B-2: The agent diary

Status: drafted · Time: 20 min · Audience: pm-designer-ops Outcome: Keep a two-week diary of routine work that could become configured-agent territory.

🎮 Quest · ⏱ 2 weeks, 2 minutes at a time · 🎯 Win condition: a ranked list of routine tasks that are candidates for an agent or reusable recipe.


For two weeks, every time you handle a routine ops task, ask:

“Could a configured agent have done this if it had the right instructions, tools, and guardrails?”

Do not automate everything immediately. Just keep the diary.

The point is pattern recognition. By the end of two weeks, you should be able to see which tasks are occasional annoyances and which ones are quietly eating a day of your week.


Use a simple table.

DateTaskTime spentRepeats how often?Could AI help?Why / why not?
2026-04-27Weekly status digest35 minWeeklyYesInputs are structured, output format repeats.
2026-04-28Escalation judgement call20 minAd hocMaybeAI can summarise context, but owner decides.

Keep the entries short. A diary you actually maintain beats a perfect tracker you abandon on day three.


At the end of two weeks, sort the diary by three signals.

Frequency. Daily beats monthly.

Repeatability. Same inputs and same output shape beats bespoke judgement every time.

Safety. Workflows with clean non-sensitive inputs are easier first targets than workflows full of customer data, credentials, financial decisions, or confidential docs.

Your boss-fight candidate should sit near the top on all three.


Your quest note should include:

  • at least ten diary entries;
  • the top three candidate workflows;
  • one workflow you explicitly rejected and why;
  • the workflow you want to use for Boss Fight 0B;
  • the guardrails or human review step it will need.

You pass the quest when:

  • you maintained the diary across two weeks;
  • the entries are specific enough to act on;
  • you can name the highest-leverage workflow;
  • you can explain why that workflow is safe enough to automate;
  • you are ready to attempt Boss Fight 0B.

  • The best automation candidates reveal themselves through repetition.
  • “Could AI help?” is a better daily question than “what should I automate?”
  • Rejected workflows are useful; they sharpen your judgement.
  • The boss fight is where you turn the diary’s best candidate into a working two-week automation.

Previous: ← Quest 0B-1 The 30-minute teardown · Next: → Boss Fight 0B