Agent Intent Recipes
Intent patterns that work well for agents, and the wording that trips the gates.
Natural-language intents that match documented contracts. Prefer dry-run / read first.
Read-only intents
bash
postsale run "how many carriers and origin addresses do I have?"
postsale run "list order statuses for this account"
postsale run "what should I ship? show the work queue with applied filters"
postsale run "find orders from last 7 days"
postsale run "how much did we spend on shipping last month?"
postsale run "get rates for shipment <id>"Dry-run money path
bash
postsale run --dry-run "Ship order <ord_id> with the cheapest carrier"
postsale run --dry-run "Purchase a PDF label for shipment <shp_id>"
postsale run --dry-run "void shipment <shp_id>"Remember: some non-money writes still execute under dry-run.
Intents that spend money
bash
postsale run "ship order ord_abc123 with the cheapest carrier" --yes
postsale run "create a shipment for order ord_xyz and purchase the label" --yesParallel batches
bash
# money batch: TTY batch approve or POSTSALE_SWARM_AUTOAUTH=1
postsale run "ship today's pending orders with the cheapest carrier" --yes
# read-only: avoid money keywords in the implied template
postsale run "look up these order ids and report each current status: ..."Anti-patterns
| Avoid | Why |
|---|---|
| Inventing status enums | Silent empty results |
| batch template: "check each shipment label" for reads | Keyword gate false positive |
Expecting --yes to authorize parallel batch money | Batch gate separate |
| Reusing rate-quote estimated dimensions for purchase | Quote-only defaults |
| Parsing stderr progress as JSON | Breaks on spinner/breadcrumbs |
Additional Reading
On this page
Related