a-failed-look-is-not-a-quiet-week

Make a scheduled send tell an empty period from a failed look, so a broken source does not mark everybody served and defer them to the next run.

Procedure

start start. Goes next to s1
check Did the source answer at all?. Goes on_fail to s8; next to s2
decision Empty, or unable to look?. Goes if unavailable to s3; if default to s6
check Nobody was marked as served. Goes on_fail to s4; next to s5
check The count is a count, not a ceiling. Goes on_fail to s8; next to s7
action Put back the ones it marked, RW (reversible-write), requires approval. Goes on_fail to s8; next to s5
action Record the period as genuinely empty, RW (reversible-write). Goes on_fail to s8; next to __end_success
check The run reported itself as failed. Goes on_fail to s8; next to __end_aborted
end success. Terminal
escalate Escalate before the next run. Terminal
end aborted. Terminal

Open the graph on its own page — larger, printable, and an address you can send.

Walk it without running it — you answer what your environment would answer, and the path, the capabilities, the approvals and the distance back to an undo come out of the document. Nothing executes; there is no Run button here and there will not be one.

Trust

T2 · attested 2026-10-11 · runbooks.directory

Nobody has attested this record. That is the ordinary case: T2 is what the catalog can check on its own, and T3 needs somebody to run the procedure and sign for it.

Link liveness has not been checked: it needs a network and the catalog builds without one. Run pnpm gates --online where there is one.

Steps

s1 check — Did the source answer at all?
s2 decision — Empty, or unable to look?
s3 check — Nobody was marked as served
s4 action — Put back the ones it marked (reversible-write) — requires approval
s5 check — The run reported itself as failed
s6 check — The count is a count, not a ceiling
s7 action — Record the period as genuinely empty (reversible-write)
s8 escalate — Escalate before the next run

Capabilities

This is a privilege request. Check it against your own allowlist before running.

cli:psql — used by s1, s3

Provenance

Source: https://runbooks.directory/r/std/a-failed-look-is-not-a-quiet-week/source.md
Fetched: 2026-09-04
Source last checked: not since it was captured on 2026-09-04 — recorded as current
Licence: CC-BY-4.0
How it got here: Written by this catalog's maintainers and reviewed in full.
Highest risk in this procedure: reversible-write

Take it with you

SKILL.md — the record as an Agent Skills file
workflow.yaml — Open Workflow DSL 1.0.3, for a runner
record.json — the catalog's own JSON
graph.svg — the graph, standalone

Run it under supervision

Runs here, on your machine, under supervision: every step is proposed before it happens, an approval gate stops for you, and a failed expectation goes where the procedure says rather than on to the next step. Nothing is sent anywhere. To supervise an agent that is doing the work instead, runbooks hook sits in its tool-call path.

npx @runbooks/cli run std/a-failed-look-is-not-a-quiet-week@1.0.0 --as "$(whoami)" \
  --input run_id=<the scheduled run being examined>