StandIn in practice
Three scenarios. Each one shows something different.
Sarah finishes her day in Tokyo and publishes her brief before closing her laptop.
Sarah's brief became a record her team can ask about.
StandIn holds it until her window expires at 09:00 tomorrow.
No one needs to ping her overnight.
Alex in Amsterdam asked about the API at 10:00 his time. He had his answer from what Sarah wrote down. Nobody waited.
Sarah is away for a week. Before leaving, she briefed her StandIn on what's in flight and who decides what while she's gone.
Is the auth API ready to merge, or does that wait for Sarah?
Yes, PR #482 is ready. Sarah noted you can merge it if the JWT config has landed. Dave owns that call while she's away.
Sarah was not pinged. The asker had their answer in 4 seconds, clearly labeled as her StandIn.
Nobody waited until she was back.
The auto-reply said nothing. Her StandIn answered, in her words, with her name on it.
She came back to a summary, not a full inbox.
The out-of-office reply says: wait until I'm back. A StandIn answers instead. That's the retirement of the auto-reply.
Seen enough? Your team could work this way in a week.
Request a pilotTwo questions whose answers aren't in anyone's work.
@standin What did Sarah think of the vendor proposal?
That isn't in Sarah's work. Priya reviewed the proposal; ask her.
@standin Who worked the most hours this week?
I don't hold activity, hours worked, or presence.
StandIn answered neither question.
Not with a polite dodge: with an honest no, and a pointer to the person who knows.
The data it would need to answer doesn't exist anywhere in the product.
The honest no is what makes the first two scenarios believable. If StandIn answered these questions, you couldn't trust any of its answers.
These scenarios run on what your team writes.
There's no AI reading your messages, guessing your status, or watching your screen. StandIn answers from briefs your team publishes, and says "I don't know" when the information isn't there.