The structured action plan

What this is

Every decision in your workspace can carry more than a recommendation: it can carry an actual plan. IQ, your AI Co-COO, breaks a decision into concrete steps, each with an owner, a rough due date, and a status you can move forward yourself. That plan is the Action plan panel: a step-by-step checklist that sits underneath a decision's framing, not a paragraph you have to translate into a to-do list on your own.

Verinode does not execute these steps for you and does not decide which ones matter most. IQ drafts the plan, drafts the emails and scripts behind the steps that need them, and flags what is slipping. You mark work done, assign it, put it on your calendar, or ask for a different approach. Every step in this panel is something you or a teammate does, or a check-in on something IQ already ran.

Where to find it

Open Decisions from the sidebar, then open any decision. Each one lives at its own address, /decisions/[id]. Scroll past the decision's framing at the top of the workspace and the Action plan panel appears with its own heading and a small toolbar on the right.

If a decision has no plan yet, you will not see this panel at all: it only mounts once a plan envelope has been created for that decision, whether by IQ or by you asking IQ to draft one.

The header row

At the top of the panel, next to the "Action plan" heading, sits a right-aligned toolbar and a summary line:

• Save to SOP. Appears only once at least one step has been marked done. Saves the completed steps from this plan as a draft standard operating procedure. IQ shows a confirmation card before anything lands in your SOP library, nothing is added silently. The button cycles through "Saving...", then either "Saved · N steps queued" or "Error · <message>".
• Add to calendar. Appears only on a plan that is still active (not yet resolved) and only when at least one step is worth putting on a calendar. Opens the calendar confirmation sheet, covered below.
• Cancel plan. Appears only on a plan that is still active. Closes the plan out without finishing it: it moves to Resolved and stops showing up among your active plans. You can always start a fresh plan on the same decision later.
• Summary line. Reads "N of M done", plus "· not started" if the plan has been created but no step has been worked yet. If this plan has been through a replan, a version tag appears first: "v2 ·", "v3 ·", and so on. The very first version of a plan never shows a version number: v1 carries no extra meaning, so IQ only surfaces the count once a plan has actually been redone.

Anatomy of a step

Each step renders as its own card, numbered in the order IQ intended them to run. A finished, skipped, or no-longer-relevant step collapses by default (so your eye lands on what is still open); everything still active starts expanded. Click the step's title, or the Expand / Collapse control in its top-right corner, to toggle either direction.

Every card carries the same meta row across the top:

• Status pill. One of: Queued, In progress, Waiting, Blocked, Done, Obviated, Skipped. Waiting means the step depends on someone outside your team responding; Blocked means it cannot move until something else clears first; Obviated means the step turned out not to be needed.
• Kind label. What the step actually is: Email, Call script, Survey, Tracker, Comparison, IQ lookup, IQ research, Vault, Calendar, External, Decision link, or Note. The kind decides what shows up below the description (see "What each kind of step looks like" further down).
• Owner and timing. Who is on the hook, "You", "IQ", or "Team" once you have assigned it to a teammate, followed by when it is due: "Today", "Tomorrow", "Day 3", or, in the second week of a plan, "Day 9 (week 2)".
• Completed date. A checkmark and date once the step is marked done.
• Overdue or exposure badge. Covered in detail in the next section.
• A per-card Expand / Collapse toggle.

Below the meta row sits the step's title (struck through once the step is done, obviated, or skipped), then, when expanded:

• A What to do block: the plain-language description of the step.
• A Things to look out for numbered list, when IQ attached specific pitfalls or watch-outs to that step.
• A Reason line if the step was skipped, showing the reason you gave. This stays visible even when the card is collapsed, so you can scan a list of skipped steps and see why each one was passed over without opening every card.
• Whatever affordance the step's kind calls for (a template, a link, a small grid: see below).
• The action row: Mark done, Assign to..., Skip, and, for IQ-run steps, Re-run.

If a click fails, for example a network blip or a permission problem, the error message appears directly under that step so you know to retry, rather than a button staying stuck on "Marking..." with no explanation.

Due dates and overdue badges

A step's due date is not a fixed calendar date stored on the row: it is computed from when the plan started plus that step's day offset (the "Day 3" / "Day 9" label from the meta row). Once the plan has started and a step's computed due date has passed, and the step is not done, obviated, or skipped, the card carries an overdue badge reading "Nd overdue".

Some steps carry more than a day count. When IQ can attach a concrete dollar cost to leaving a step open, for example a margin recovery step or a supplement with a filing deadline, the badge upgrades to show the exposure instead: "$1.2k slipped · 5d overdue · ~$400/wk". That reads as: how much has already accrued since the due date passed, how many days overdue the step is, and what it continues to cost per week if it stays open. Not every step carries this figure. It only appears where the cost of waiting is genuinely knowable, never as a generic penalty applied to every late step.

When at least one step in the plan is both overdue and carries a dollar exposure, a plan-level banner appears above the step list, labeled "Slipping": "N overdue subtasks · $X slipped to date · ~$Y/wk continuing". That is the same math rolled up across the whole plan, so you can see the running cost of delay at a glance before opening any individual step.

Assigning a step

Click Assign to... on any active step to hand it off. The control loads your company's data contributors (teammates you have invited in that role) the first time you open it, and lists them by name. Pick one and:

• Any earlier open delegation on that same step is closed out first, so re-assigning a step always points at exactly one current owner.
• The step's owner in the meta row switches to "Team".
• The assigned teammate is emailed the step's title and description so they know what to do without logging in first, and you get a confirmation.

Only an operator can assign a step; a data contributor account cannot delegate work to someone else. If your company has not invited any data contributors yet, the dropdown reads:

"No data contributors yet. Invite one in Settings."

Add to calendar

There are two separate ways a step can land on your calendar.

The plan-level sheet. Click Add to calendar in the panel's header and IQ opens a confirmation sheet:

"IQ picked the steps worth a spot on your calendar, deadlines, follow-ups, and focus blocks. Uncheck anything you'd rather keep off. Each entry links back to this action plan."

IQ only proposes steps you would actually act on personally: emails, calls, surveys, trackers, comparisons, external tasks, and scheduled focus blocks. Its own lookups and research runs, and pure navigation steps like a vault link or a linked decision, never show up here, since there is nothing to attend on a calendar for those. Each candidate row shows a headline, a kind pill (Email, Call, Survey, Tracker, Comparison, Task, or Focus block), a date, and a one-line rationale, for example:

• A scheduled focus block: "IQ set aside a focus block for this step, worth holding the time."
• A step you are waiting on someone else for: "You're waiting on someone here. A reminder on [date] to follow up if you haven't heard back."
• A step with a genuine future deadline: "This step is due [date]. Keeping the deadline on your calendar so it doesn't slip."
• A step already due today or earlier comes unchecked by default: "Due today or earlier, add it only if you want the nudge."

High-signal items (deadlines, follow-ups, focus blocks) start pre-checked; day-of housekeeping starts unchecked. You have the final say over what actually lands. Confirm with Add to calendar (or "Add N to calendar" when more than one is selected) and Verinode hands you a calendar file: on a phone this opens straight into your native calendar's "Add" sheet, on desktop it downloads a file your calendar app can import. Every event it creates is an all-day entry with a 9am reminder and a link straight back to this decision.

The single focus-block link. A step whose kind is Calendar (IQ scheduled it as a dedicated focus block) carries its own inline Add to calendar ↗ link plus a note on how long the block is, for example "60-min focus block". Clicking it opens a prefilled Google Calendar event directly, no confirmation sheet in between, since this is a single, specific block IQ already sized for you. You can still edit the time or duration inside Google before saving it.

What each kind of step looks like

Beyond the shared card layout, several kinds render their own affordance in place of, or alongside, the description:

• Email, Survey, Call script, and related draft-based kinds carry one or more ready-made templates. Each template shows its own type pill (Email, Survey, Memo, Checklist, Talking points, Call script, Playbook, or Standard), and for emails, editable To and Subject fields plus the body text (with Edit, Copy, and Open in mail to hand it straight to your mail client). A survey template shows Send survey when it is meant for an external recipient, or Run audit when it is a self-audit you complete yourself. Long bodies collapse to a short preview with a "Show N more lines" toggle.
• Vault steps render an Open Vault link into My Vault, deep-linked to a specific document or tab when IQ knew one, or to the vault's root when it did not.
• Decision link steps render an Open the linked decision link when IQ attached a specific decision to point at; if it didn't, nothing renders rather than a link to nowhere.
• Calendar (schedule block) steps render the focus-block affordance described above.
• Comparison steps render a small read-only grid, capped at four options across four dimensions, comparing whatever IQ was weighing for that step.
• Tracker steps render a small read-only table (capped at five columns and five rows) tied to a section of the platform, with an "Open [section]" link to jump there directly when that section is one Verinode routes to.
• IQ lookup and IQ research steps are ones IQ ran itself. Once one has run, a one-line summary appears inline, and a Re-run control lets you have IQ run it again on demand, whether the step is still active or already marked done. After it finishes, the card notes "Last run [date/time]".
• Note and External steps show only the description; External steps also show up in the calendar sheet as a plain "Task".

Marking a step done, or skipping it

Mark done records the step as complete immediately, with your name and the timestamp attached. Skip asks you why first: a required text field reads "Why skip? (required)", and you confirm or cancel. A skipped step keeps its reason visible even when collapsed, so a list of skipped steps still tells its own story without you reopening each one.

Requesting a replan

Sometimes a plan runs its course and the outcome is that it did not move the metric it was meant to move. When that happens, the panel shows a banner:

"This plan didn't move the metric." followed by either your own note on what didn't work, or, if you didn't leave one, "IQ can read the prior outcome and try a different approach."

Click Regenerate plan with IQ and Verinode opens a new, empty plan version, seeded with the prior plan's outcome and your note so IQ has that context the moment you engage it again. The step list is empty until you act on it: the panel's empty state at that point reads:

"v2 is ready. IQ has the prior plan's outcome + your replan note in context. Open IQ chat and ask it to draft, or click Act in the workspace to generate a different approach."

This is a hard cut, not an edit: the old plan closes out and a new version number takes over. That's also why the version tag ("v2 ·", "v3 ·") only appears once a decision has actually been replanned.

1. 1Read the "didn't move the metric" banner and, if you have one, jot down what didn't work before regenerating: that note travels straight into IQ's context for the next attempt.
2. 2Click Regenerate plan with IQ. A new, empty plan version opens.
3. 3Open IQ chat, or click Act in the workspace, and ask IQ to draft the new approach.
4. 4Review the new steps as they land, same panel, same controls.

Prior versions

If a decision has been through more than one plan version, a footer link appears below the step list: "Show N prior versions". Expanding it lists each earlier plan with its version number, who generated it (IQ, an IQ replan, or your own edit), its state (Replanned, Closed with a reason, Closed, or Inactive), a tag for whether the metric moved or didn't, and the date it closed or was generated.

Empty states

• No plan for this decision at all. The Action plan panel does not render.
• Plan exists, no steps yet, not a replan. "No subtasks yet. The plan envelope exists; subtasks land here as IQ generates or you add them."
• Plan exists, no steps yet, is a fresh replan. The v(N) is ready message described above.
• No data contributors to assign to. "No data contributors yet. Invite one in Settings."

Best-practice example

Say a supplement-recovery decision's plan is on day 9 of a 14-day window. One step, following up with the adjuster, has slipped past its due date and carries a known cost of delay: the card shows "$1.2k slipped · 5d overdue · ~$400/wk", and the plan-level Slipping banner rolls that into the plan total. You click Assign to... and hand the follow-up to a teammate who has more adjuster contacts, which emails them the step and switches its owner to Team. Because the step is a phone call with a real deadline, it is pre-checked in the Add to calendar sheet; you confirm it and it lands on your calendar with a link back to the decision. If the plan later closes without moving the metric, the same panel lets you click Regenerate plan with IQ, leave a one-line note on what didn't work, and pick the conversation back up in chat.

Related reading

• The decision workspace
• Acting on decisions
• The Feed