Triage & the inbox

Triage is the heart of Shrike. The inbox is a dense, single-column list you move through with j / k, acting on whatever is selected — or on the thread you’ve opened — with a single key.

Moving through the list

• j / k (or ↓ / ↑) move the selection down and up.
• Enter or o opens the selected thread; u or Esc returns to the list.
• [ and ] jump to the previous / next thread while reading, so you can walk a conversation list without bouncing back to the inbox.

The triage keys

Every triage action works on the selected thread in the list or the open thread in the reader — same key, same result:

Key	Action	What it does
e	Archive	Removes from the inbox, keeps the mail
h	Snooze	Hides until a later time, then returns it
s	Star	Toggles the star / flag
m	Mute	Silences a noisy thread’s future replies
#	Trash	Moves to Trash
⇧U / ⇧I	Unread / read	Toggles the read state

Optimistic, with undo

Triage actions take effect immediately in the local view and sync to Gmail in the background. If something goes wrong, the change rolls back. Made a mistake? ⌘Z undoes the last action within a short window.

This is what “local-first” buys you: the inbox never freezes waiting for the network, and a flaky connection never costs you a keystroke.

A clean-inbox loop

A typical fast pass looks like:

1. j to the next thread.
2. Skim the subject + snippet.
3. e to archive, h to snooze, or t to turn it into a to-do.
4. Repeat.

Reply when you need to (r / ⇧R), send with ⌘Enter, and keep moving. For the complete list, see the keyboard reference.