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ADR-0029: Plaud Recordings and Conversation Transcripts as Authoritative Decision Records

Status: Accepted
Date: 2026-09-30
Decider: Thomas Scola

Context

The Bluefly Factory has been ingesting Plaud voice recordings and meeting transcripts into the Beads system via the plaud-capture-pipeline. This created 442+ op-pl* beads (prefixed op-pl, labeled source:plaud) representing commitments, context, and decisions from real business conversations.

These beads were classified as "needing human review" during a bead triage operation because their authority status was unclear — were they authoritative decision records or CRM noise?

Decision

Plaud recordings and conversation transcripts are authoritative decision records and context in the Bluefly Factory.

They belong in Beads. They are not CRM overflow, not noise, and not a sidecar ledger.

Specifically:

  1. source:plaud beads are authoritative context. When an agent claims a bead, it must load relevant source:plaud beads for the same domain as decision context, alongside Engineering Standards and ADRs.

  2. Commitments auto-create beads. A commitment detected in a Plaud transcript creates a bead automatically (type=task or type=decision per classification). No staging queue. Beads are cheap and closeable; missed commitments are not.

  3. The pipeline runs on Oracle. The Plaud capture pipeline cron runs on Oracle for continuity across sessions. Not Mac.

  4. Client isolation via Cedar. Per-client recordings route to scoped Qdrant collections. Cedar policy denies cross-client reads. This is a system enforcement, not a human process.

  5. Consent is Thomas's responsibility. The system enforces isolation. Disclosure practice and retention policy per engagement are owner decisions, not system decisions.

  6. Client detection uses calendar attendees with transcript inference as fallback. Calendar connector is the required source; transcript inference is the fallback.

Consequences

  • All 442 op-pl* beads are valid durable work items. They are not to be bulk-closed.
  • Agents loading context at claim time MUST check bd list --label source:plaud --label domain:<domain> for relevant commitments.
  • The plaud-capture-pipeline-playbook.md is promoted from draft to canonical.
  • source:plaud beads have the same authority as explicit Bead assignments — they represent real commitments made by real people in real conversations.
  • The Plaud pipeline is a governed production capability, not a prototype.

Priority hierarchy for agent context loading

Engineering Standard / ADR
↓
source:plaud decision bead (confirmed commitment)
↓
Bead description / assignment
↓
Agent inference from title

A source:plaud commitment bead supersedes agent memory or inference when conflict exists.

Recorded from Thomas Scola's explicit confirmation: 2026-09-30T11:53 EDT. "Yes, we want to use the conversations and plaud recordings as decision records and context."