How Underway works

01

How a task moves

Every task you capture gets a brief. Your assistant works from it, comes to you only when it needs you, and hands back a result for you to check.

The brief

Within moments of a capture, Underway writes a brief: what the task is for, how the work flows, and what your AI can take. A brief is our reading of the task, not a script; your assistant checks it against what it actually finds in your mail, files and calendar.

Brief Chase Northwind about invoice #1042 — it’s 30 days late

The goaland what done looks like: Invoice #1042 is paid, or Northwind has agreed to a payment date in writing.
How the work flows: Confirm nothing has come in, find the last exchange, draft a firm, friendly reminder for you to send, and follow up if there is no reply within a week.
What AI can take: Finding the invoice and the thread in your mail, checking the payment against your records, and drafting the reminder in your voice.
What matters about you: You invoice on 30-day terms and keep a warm tone with long-standing clients.
What came before: Northwind paid late in the spring too; a short, direct note got a date within two days.

The loop

Your AI works until the task is finished, blocked, or waiting. If it needs you, it asks, and the task sits in Your move. When you answer, it goes back to your assistant, which picks up where it left off. If it is only waiting — on a reply, or a date — it checks back on its own.

For your assistant
Your move
Review
Done

A question

A decision or a fact you can give in seconds.

“Address the reminder to their accounts team, or to your usual contact?”
An action

Something only you can do, prepared so it is ready to act on.

“Send the reminder — it’s in your drafts, addressed and ready.”
A browser session

Work on a site signed in as you: a cart, a booking, an account page. You come in to sign in or approve, then leave it to your assistant.

“Sign in to the supplier portal so I can pull the statement.”

Review, then done

A finished task lands in Review with what it produced: the draft, the comparison, the answer. You mark it done, or add a note asking for more and it goes back to work. Nothing is filed away before you have seen it.

Solo tasks

Some things only you can do — sign the lease at the agent’s office, pick up the new keys. They stay in the same list, without a brief, so you never keep a second one.

02

When to use Underway, and when to just ask

Your AI is still the right place for a quick question. Underway is for the work that outlives the conversation.

Just ask	Hand it to Underway
A question you want answered now A one-off rewrite or summary Something you want to steer step by step Anything you’ll finish in this conversation	A task to jot down and set off in the background A bigger job you want tracked in one place Work that should only come to you when it needs you Work that’s waiting on someone else

If you’d be annoyed to explain it twice, hand it to Underway.

A handed-off task still becomes a conversation whenever you want one: working a task with your assistant.

03

Writing a good capture

One sentence is enough. A few words more than a to-do item makes for a much better brief.

Say the outcome, not the steps. What should be true when it’s done? Your assistant works out the route.
Name the people and things involved. The client, the invoice number, the document — whatever your assistant should go looking for.
Add a deadline if there is one. “By Friday” or “before the rainy season” changes what comes first.

Instead of invoice write Chase Northwind about invoice #1042 — it’s 30 days late
Instead of board deck write Draft the Q3 board update from the finance sheet, due the 20th
Instead of roof write Get three quotes for the roof repair before the rainy season

You don’t need to write the rest. The brief fills it in from what Underway knows about you and your projects, and from how your earlier tasks went.

04

While you’re away: scheduled runs and your rules

Scheduled runs

A scheduled task in your assistant picks up whatever is ready and works it, so you come back to drafts and findings, not cold briefs.

An optional desktop run does the same on your own computer, on the sites you’re already signed in to there, filling a cart or a form for you to finish. It never checks out, pays or submits unless your rules allow it.

Skipping either is fine — you can work any task by opening it.

Your rules

Standing instructions your assistant follows on every task. They set what it may put in front of other people on your behalf — an email sent, an invite issued, a document shared — and the default is to prepare and hand back, never send.

They also carry how you like things done: the tone of your emails, where drafts should go, what to always include. Write them once and every task follows them. Change them anytime.

Every account starts with a default set, and we recommend keeping it: find it under Manage rules in the profile menu, and add what’s yours as you go.

Your rules — from the defaults

Limits

Nothing goes in front of another person without me. Prepare it and leave the sending to me.
Drafts, research and notes only I can see: go ahead.

Personalization

In email, match the tone and length of the thread.
In documents, keep it plain and start with the answer.

Preferences

If it runs longer than a few paragraphs, put it in a document and give me the link.

Making them yours

Edit a default or add an exception under it, in your own words. These three lines loosen one limit and add two habits of your own:

Your additions — an example

Limits

Replies to my own team can go out without me.

Personalization

Short emails. Lead with the ask.

Preferences

Put drafts in the shared drive, not in email.

05

Working a task with your assistant

Any task can be picked up in a conversation, and most are at some point. Open the card and follow the link under its headline.

From the card

Work this more in Claude (or ChatGPT) opens a new chat with the task already loaded: the brief, what has happened so far, and what is needed now. You start from your first question, not from explaining the task.

Back on the task

What you decide and produce there goes on the task, so the next pass, and the next conversation, start from it. Your assistant writes it back as you go; to be sure, say “update the task” at any point.

You are never leaving Underway for the chat. The chat is one of the places the task gets worked.

06

Managing your tasks from your assistant

Your assistant can manage your task list, not just work on what’s in it: list your tasks, capture new ones, add notes, mark them done, reopen them, sort them into projects. For a batch, it’s the easier way.

From a document

“Read my syllabus and make a task for each assignment, with its due date.”
From your mail

“Go through last week’s mail and make a task for anything I haven’t dealt with.”
From your calendar

“Look at the next two weeks of my calendar and make a task for anything I need to prepare for.”

Each one gets a brief the moment it lands, the same as a task you typed yourself.

07

What you need

Underway runs inside the AI you already use, so there is very little to set up.

A paid Claude or ChatGPT plan

Tool connections and scheduled tasks need one, and Underway uses both.
The desktop app

Recommended rather than required: it is the most comfortable and powerful place to work on your tasks, and where your assistant can work in a browser signed in as you.
The tools your work runs on

Mail, docs, calendar, CRM, Slack and the rest, connected to that assistant. The more it can reach, the more it can take. It uses its own connections; Underway never sees your credentials.

Once you’re in, your first tasks are the setup, and the Setup page has the same steps in one place.