Top 10 use cases,
Axis and Porchlight

1. 1

   The blocked-on-you list, batched into one sitting

   ■Works today

   Trigger: "What is stopped and waiting on me."

   Does: Reads every project HANDOFF, pulls every item marked waiting on Jason, ranks them by what each one unblocks downstream, hands back one numbered list you can answer inline.

   Why it matters: You already work this way. 07_chief_of_staff/tonight-blockers.md was exactly this list and you cleared all nine items in one pass. Assembling it took a full night. This makes it a question.

2. 2

   What does this one thing hold up

   ■Works today

   Trigger: "If the brand book review slips another week, what breaks."

   Does: Traces the dependency chain across projects and names the first thing that misses its date, with the date.

   Why it matters: Brand lock gates the two restaurant rebrands, which gate photography, which gates the Uber Eats menus, which gates the August go-live. That chain lives across four folders and is written down nowhere as a chain.

3. 3

   Catch the contradiction before it costs you

   ■Works today

   Trigger: "Check Uber Eats for consistency," or just asking for the launch status.

   Does: Compares the same fact across every file that states it and reports the disagreement with file paths.

   Why it matters: Found today: go-live is Aug 22 in UberEats-Runbook.md and that project's HANDOFF, Aug 15 in rebrand/REBRAND-PLAN.md and both DIRECTION docs, and Aug 15 in 00_HANDOFF.md, which also still says book photo shoots by Jul 28 when the runbook says Aug 4. Three dates, one launch, and signage print lead time sits on the wrong one.

4. 4

   Where does this live now

   ■Works today

   Trigger: "Where is the Sauce Lady Grubhub finding," or "what did we decide about the Service OS categories."

   Does: Answers from the real files and gives you the path, so you never re-explain context you already gave once.

   Why it matters: You have already had to give the same answer twice in capital letters (tonight-blockers.md, item 7). Reaching Monday.com this way needs OAuth. Reaching the files works today.

5. 5

   The stale sweep, and what should be killed

   ■Works today

   Trigger: "What has gone quiet." Weekly, or on demand.

   Does: Flags projects with no movement, flags decisions that were scheduled but never recorded, and proposes a kill or an archive for work that no longer has a reason to exist.

   Why it matters: The 2026-07-22 walkthrough was booked to lock the charter, the roadmap, and the 15. No file records what was decided. The same sweep would have called asana-hygiene-report dead weight the moment Asana became frozen reference.

6. 6

   Triage the work inbox down to what needs me

   ▪Needs OAuth

   Trigger: "What in my inbox actually needs me today."

   Does: Reads the Seconds Co Gmail, surfaces money, partners, and deadlines, buries the rest, sends nothing.

   Why it matters: This is the Signal Guard pillar from 14_axis/URGENT-15-SOLUTIONS.md. One grant switches it on. There is no build behind it, which makes it the cheapest item on either list.

7. 7

   Prep me for this conversation

   ■Works today

   Trigger: "I have David and Michael in an hour."

   Does: Pulls what they are waiting on, what you promised last time, what changed since, and the three questions they will open with, into one page.

   Why it matters: The brand book lock and the KPI targets both sit on their feedback, and every numeric target in 08_kpi_okrs is still a placeholder. That is the difference between getting a decision and booking another follow-up. Firing this automatically off the calendar needs OAuth. Asking for it works today.

8. 8

   Defend the calendar around the fixed points

   ▪Needs OAuth

   Trigger: "Book today around the 12:45."

   Does: Places work and focus blocks around the meetings that cannot move, and never schedules over anything you have declared untouchable.

   Why it matters: Scheduling Autopilot is one of the two first bets named in 14_axis/HANDOFF.md. It is also the only item here that gives you time back on a day when nothing is broken.

9. 9

   Money sitting idle in finished work

   ■Works today

   Trigger: "What in the finished research is still not earning."

   Does: Rereads completed audits for findings with revenue attached that nobody actioned, and states what closing each one takes.

   Why it matters: 05_restaurant_platform_audit confirmed on 2026-07-13 that Joe's full lunch menu, 13 categories, exists in the DoorDash backend and is invisible to customers, who see breakfast only. That has been true and unactioned for eighteen days.

10. 10

    Dispatch a Bench agent at a stalled project

    □Needs build

    Trigger: "Send QA at the Project X home page." "Have copywriting take the Porchlight chips."

    Does: Picks the right one of the six Bench agents, writes the job prompt against the real files, runs it, brings the findings back into the conversation.

    Why it matters: A chief of staff assigns work, it does not only answer questions. The six agents exist and sit disabled in 15_axis_bench/jobs.json, and Project X still carries a QA blocker nobody has touched: seven of eight nav links are dead. Two gates here, not one. The chat has no dispatch path, and Bench itself is paused on the credit card issue.

1. 1

   Capture it while I am driving

   ■Works today

   Trigger: Tap the mic and talk.

   Does: Takes the voice note, decides what kind of thing it is, files it, reads it back so you know it landed. Native browser speech, nothing installed.

   Why it matters: The moment you remember something is never the moment you can type it. This is the one item on either list that runs end to end today with no new connection at all.

2. 2

   Remind me in a week, and be the thing that remembers

   □Needs build

   Trigger: "Remind me about the Bench credit card in a week."

   Does: Holds the reminder with its context and surfaces it on the day, unprompted.

   Why it matters: You asked for this on 2026-07-31, twice, for the paused Axis Bench and the 7/22 walkthrough. Today that reminder exists as a sentence inside tonight-blockers-review-log.md. Nothing is going to fire it on Aug 7. The last reminder that did fire, the GitHub token rotation set for Jul 26, died with the old account.

3. 3

   Word this one for me

   ■Works today

   Trigger: "I need to say no to this without burning the relationship."

   Does: Drafts it in your voice, offers two versions at different temperatures, sends nothing.

   Why it matters: The hard messages are personal, not corporate, and they are the ones that sit unsent for days.

4. 4

   What actually has to happen before I sleep

   ■Works today

   Trigger: "It is 2am. What is real."

   Does: Cuts the list to what genuinely cannot wait and says plainly what goes to morning.

   Why it matters: On the night of 2026-07-31 you were up close to twenty four hours working a blocker list. Porchlight's job on that night is to shorten the list, not add to it.

5. 5

   Keep my personal list out of the work systems

   ■Works today

   Trigger: "Add pick up the prescription."

   Does: Holds it in Porchlight only. Never writes it to Monday.com, Asana, or the Seconds Co Workspace.

   Why it matters: You killed the personal Asana thread yourself and told the last session not to raise it again. Personal items keep going missing because there has never been a place for them that is not a work tool. This is that place. Axis does not see this list.

6. 6

   The thing I promised someone and forgot

   □Needs build

   Trigger: "Did I ever get back to my sister."

   Does: Reads local Messages and personal Mail on the Mac, on device, finds the open promise, and tells you how old it is.

   Why it matters: This is the one that would actually surprise you. It needs a local read bridge, not an OAuth grant, because personal mail and messages never touch the Workspace domain. Porchlight owns it, Axis is not allowed near it.

7. 7

   Book the thing I keep not booking

   ■Works today

   Trigger: "I still have not booked the dentist."

   Does: Drafts the call script or the message, names the exact ten minute window it should happen in, and asks you again tomorrow if it did not.

   Why it matters: Appointments do not stall because they are hard. They stall because they need a phone call inside a window you never pick.

8. 8

   Nine to noon is not negotiable

   □Needs build

   Trigger: Anything that tries to take that window.

   Does: Refuses it, offers the two nearest alternatives, and tells you what it moved.

   Why it matters: Family 9 to noon is item 15 of the 15 and is already marked protected by design. Porchlight owns it rather than Axis because it is the personal boundary, and the personal calendar stays local. That local read is the build.

9. 9

   Should I be worried about this

   ■Works today

   Trigger: "Is this actually a problem, or am I just tired."

   Does: Talks it through, separates the part that is real from the part that is 2am, gives you a straight answer.

   Why it matters: The account takeover scare is the real example. It sat open as a worry for ten days and closed as nothing on 2026-07-31. A ten minute conversation on day one saves the ten days.

10. 10

    Read me my day, personal side only

    □Needs build

    Trigger: "What does my own day look like."

    Does: Reads the personal calendar from the Mac and gives you the plain version. No projects, no Seconds Co.

    Why it matters: Every rundown you get today is work. Same local bridge as items 6 and 8, so all three land together.

1. Reminder persistence and delivery

   Unlocks Porchlight 2, and turns Porchlight 7 from a single answer into something that follows up. Smallest build on the list, and it is the one thing you explicitly asked for this week. Right now the Aug 7 reminder is a sentence in a markdown file with nothing behind it.

2. The local Mac read bridge for Porchlight

   One build unlocks Porchlight 6, 8, and 10 together, and it holds your personal data boundary instead of working around it. Read only, on device, nothing syncs up to Google.

3. Bench dispatch from the chat

   Unlocks Axis 10 and changes what Axis is. Answering questions is a search box. Assigning a QA agent at Project X and coming back with findings is a chief of staff. Gated behind the Bench credit card issue as well as the build, so sequence it third.

Separate from all three: granting Gmail, Calendar, and Monday.com access unlocks Axis 6 and 8 with zero engineering. That is roughly five minutes of your time, and it moves two of the top eight from gated to live.

• A dashboard, or a morning brief screen. Retired twice already. "An operator, not an artifact" is the approved framing, and a briefing is one feature, not the product. Both lists are built as things you ask for, not screens you check.
• Anything that sends, publishes, or spends on its own. Standing rule in every project file: draft, show, wait. Nine of the twenty items above produce something. None of them ship it.
• Personal tasks syncing two ways into Asana or Monday.com. This was item 13 of the 15. You killed the personal projects thread and asked not to be asked again. Porchlight holds personal items and does not export them anywhere.
• Always on 24/7 cloud scheduling for the assistant. Scrapped, not deferred, on your instruction. Nothing above needs it.
• A spend and guardrail auditor as a use case. Real finding, wrong shape. Turning on restaurant digest plus SaaSCast keeper plus the evergreen chief-of-staff job sums to $11.50 against a $10 run ceiling, and chief-of-staff sits last in the job order, so it is the one that gets silently skipped on a busy night. That is a one line fix to run.capUsd in 15_axis_bench/jobs.json, not a product feature. Flagged here so it does not get lost.
• "Summarize this email thread" as a Porchlight use case. It was number 4 on the previous PA list. It belongs to Axis. The only mail either persona can reach is the Seconds Co Workspace mail, and that is work by definition. Porchlight would have been pretending.