---
title: Properties Instead Of A Brief
type: anti-pattern
level: L1
status: live
revision: 1
updated: 2026-08-14
systemVersion: 4.2
tags: [tasks, delegation, tooling]
rating: 7.50
ratingAxes: useful 8 · evidence 7 · pull 7 · original 7 · form 9
ratingKind: derived
source: task policy, in production
---

# Properties Instead Of A Brief

_Written 2026-08-14 · last verified 2026-08-14 · system v4.2 · live_

**TL;DR** — Agent-created tasks accumulate flawless metadata — owner, due date, priority, tags — and an empty body. Three weeks later nobody can reconstruct what was meant. The test that fixes it: would the person who has to do this understand it with no memory of the conversation that created it?

## Pattern

An agent creates tasks in a tracker. The fields are perfect: owner, due date, priority, area, tags, links. The body is empty, or holds a fragment like `follow up re pricing`.

Everything a machine needs is present. Everything a human needs is not.

## Why it looks right

The metadata is the part that is hard to get right and easy to verify, so filling it well feels like the job being done. A populated task also *looks* complete in a list view, which is where anyone reviewing the system will see it.

And at the moment of creation the context is obvious — the conversation just happened.

## Why it fails

Context evaporates on a schedule of about **3 weeks**. After that, `follow up re pricing` is a message from a stranger. The owner either guesses, asks, or quietly leaves it — and the third outcome is the common one, because a task nobody understands is easier to postpone than to interrogate.

The metadata cannot help. Tags describe where a task belongs, not what it is.

## Instead

Require a body with a fixed shape, and treat an empty one as a defect rather than a style choice:

> **What this is about** — 2 to 4 full sentences, abbreviations spelled out
> **What needs doing** — actionable checklist
> **Sources** — links to the evidence

The test is a single question, applied before saving: *would this be understood by someone with no memory of the conversation that created it?*

Two supports make it stick. The agent writes the body **first**, then the fields, so the reasoning is not squeezed in as an afterthought. And an empty body fails a check rather than producing a slightly worse task — otherwise it will be skipped exactly on the busy days when the task matters most.