Late Hold Triage

Use this skill when a booked guest is late right now and the floor needs a yes, a no, or a human — not a guess — before the held slot is given away.

late-hold-triage is a one-recipient decision skill. It does not add a CALL-E backend queue, a campaign, or a waitlist dialer. It places at most one outbound call to the late guest, reads a structured result, and compares the spoken ETA to the hold that is still on the clock.

This is the missing half of next-day confirmation and first-accept cascades:

• appointment-call-confirm calls tomorrow's whole book in advance
• standby / priority-call-waterfall offer a freed slot down a list
• this skill calls the late guest who still owns the slot and only then recommends whether a human should start a cascade

It never dials the waitlist. A RELEASE_NOW is a recommendation to the host, not permission to ring the next person.

When To Use

Use this skill when:

• a restaurant, salon, clinic front desk, or repair shop is holding a slot for a guest who has passed the booked start time
• staff need a spoken ETA, not a text that may never arrive
• the hold has a hard end (hold_until) and giving the slot away too early or too late both cost money
• the operator asks something like "they're 12 minutes late — do we still hold table 7?"

When Not To Use

Do not use this skill to:

• confirm tomorrow's appointments — that is appointment-call-confirm
• fill a slot that is already free — that is standby or priority-call-waterfall
• call anyone other than the late guest on this run
• diagnose, treat, collect a debt, or discuss legal or medical substance
• infer a phone number, timezone, or hold end the operator did not supply
• treat silence, voicemail, or an unreadable answer as a release

Required Inputs

Ask for any of these that is missing. Do not infer one from locale, the phone number, or an earlier unrelated chat.

Field	Notes
guest_name	Spoken on the call so the right person can confirm identity
phone	E.164, supplied by the operator
slot_start	ISO 8601 with timezone — when the booking began
hold_until	ISO 8601 with timezone — when the house stops holding
business_name	Who the call says it is calling for
context	One logistics sentence, e.g. "table for two at the window"

Optional: region, locale, a dry-run fixture file, --now to replay a clock.

hold_until must be after slot_start. A hold that has already expired is reported as HOLD_EXPIRED and no call is placed.

Core Workflow

1. Collect the required fields. Refuse to invent a number or a hold end.
2. Dry-run first. Print the masked destination, remaining hold minutes, and the exact task text. Default mode places zero calls and needs no install — see scripts/triage_late_hold.py.
3. If the hold has already expired at --now, stop. Do not call a guest about a slot the house has already given away.
4. Live mode requires both --confirm (operator intent) and --authorized-numbers (this specific destination). See references/safety.md.
5. Place exactly one CALL-E call with the shared result_schema in references/result-schema.md. Poll it to a terminal state.
6. Decide with the deterministic rules in Runtime Workflow. Do not ask a second model to "interpret" the transcript.
7. Report one of KEEP_HOLD, RELEASE_NOW, NEEDS_HUMAN, or HOLD_EXPIRED, plus the masked phone and call_id. If the decision is RELEASE_NOW, tell the operator they may now start a separate cascade skill. This skill will not start it.

Runtime Workflow

if now >= hold_until:
    HOLD_EXPIRED          # no call
else if spoken status is no_answer, voicemail, unclear, or missing:
    NEEDS_HUMAN           # never auto-release on silence
else if still_coming is false OR released is true:
    RELEASE_NOW
else if still_coming is true AND eta_minutes is an integer:
    if eta_minutes <= minutes_until(hold_until):
        KEEP_HOLD
    else:
        RELEASE_NOW       # they cannot arrive inside the hold
else:
    NEEDS_HUMAN

eta_minutes must be a non-negative integer the guest actually spoke. A vague "soon" or "on my way" without a number is NEEDS_HUMAN, not a keep.

An ambiguous CALL-E outcome (no call id, transport error, poll timeout) halts the run. It is not scored as a release.

Safety

Read references/safety.md. In short:

• Dry-run is the default. Live calls need --confirm and an authorized number that exactly matches the guest phone.
• One call, one destination, one attempt per run. No waitlist, no retry loop, no parallel legs.
• Phone numbers are masked in every printed or written summary.
• The API key is sent only to an allowlisted HTTPS CALL-E origin.
• Logistics only. The task text never asks about diagnosis, payment cards, or legal matters.
• CALL-E has no cancellation endpoint. Stopping the script prevents a call that has not been created; it cannot pull back a call already accepted.

Output

One decision row:

• decision: KEEP_HOLD / RELEASE_NOW / NEEDS_HUMAN / HOLD_EXPIRED
• guest_name, masked phone, slot_start, hold_until
• still_coming, eta_minutes, released when the structured result has them
• call_id when a live call was created
• next_step: empty on keep; "start a cascade skill if you want the slot filled" on release; "a human must read this call" on needs-human

Never claim a call completed unless CALL-E reached a terminal status.

Files

• scripts/triage_late_hold.py — stdlib dry-run runner; live path needs requests from requirements.txt
• scripts/test_triage_late_hold.py — decision, gate, and masking tests
• assets/sample_holds.csv — fictional reserved-number fixtures
• assets/dry_run_outcomes.json — spoken outcomes for the dry-run clock
• assets/authorized_numbers.example.txt — format only
• references/result-schema.md — CALL-E result_schema and task text
• references/safety.md — full safety contract
• references/examples.md — copy-paste dry-run and live commands