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James Dimachkie
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Crewbrief

Workflow design, software in development2 min read

Crewbrief carries a field briefing from observed hazards through a simulated handoff to another crew. I directed the workflow around the distinction between reading the briefing and clearing a hazard.

In the demonstration, a hazard without a control blocks the briefing and an affected-area hold stays in place after crew acknowledgment. The scenarios and roles are fictional.

A September 2026 demonstration across three fictional scenarios; it stores nothing and creates no real briefing, attendance record or clearance.

Full scope and limits

LaborHounds remains in development. This September 2026 demonstration uses historical rules and example content. Scenarios and crew roles are fictional. It covers one briefing workflow, stores nothing and resets on refresh. It creates no real briefing, attendance record, notification or clearance. The examples are not current safety guidance and do not establish that a selected control is adequate.

Who did what

Me
I directed LaborHounds and chose the workflow shown in this demonstration.
AI
Implementation and review.
Crewbrief’s Slips, Trips and Falls category marked Control needed: two observations, zero controls selected, and the message that this category needs a control before you can continue.
The decisive state, cropped from the demonstration: two observed hazards, no control chosen, progression blocked. Open the full screenshot
A detail of Crewbrief’s paired observations and controls, with progression blocked because no control is selected.
Open full screenshot

A decision and its outcome.

Situation
A crew member can acknowledge reading a briefing while the condition that paused the work is still unresolved. If acknowledgment counted as clearance, paperwork would stand in for the control.
Decision
I kept acknowledgment and clearance separate. Reading the briefing records that it was read; the affected-area hold stays in place until it is cleared on its own terms.
Reason
The briefing needs to connect a hazard with a control. If reading the document could clear the hazard, the paperwork would replace the action it was supposed to support.
What changed
In the demonstration, Crew B’s acknowledgment is recorded and the hold remains, with the summary saying that completing the chain does not clear it. A separate offline-timeclock decision from the same project is in the note below.
Read the offline-timeclock decision

Check it yourself.

A hazard with no control blocks the briefing.
Open Try Crewbrief, choose Wet floor, mark an observation and leave every control unchecked: the category reads Control needed and the next step stays unavailable until a control is chosen.
Reading a briefing is not clearance.
Choose Suspected material, preview the document, simulate the handoff to Crew B, read to the end and acknowledge: the summary records the acknowledgment and still shows the affected-area hold as paused.
The example creates no real records.
Refresh the page: the state resets. The scenarios, crew and hazards are fictional, and no record, notification or clearance is created anywhere.

How the briefing works

LaborHounds is a field-operations application I am developing. Crewbrief reuses its original rules for choosing controls and suggesting personal protective equipment (PPE), then follows the briefing through crew acknowledgment.

The PPE step suggests protective equipment but leaves the selections to the person preparing the briefing. The person chooses the equipment before previewing the document.

Trying a crew handoff

Start with Wet floor. The briefing begins incomplete. Choose a control, select PPE, then preview the document. Simulate the handoff to Crew B, read to the end, and acknowledge it.

Then try Suspected material. The affected-area hold stays in place after acknowledgment. The interaction records that the briefing was read; it does not claim the condition has been cleared.

Crewbrief’s summary after simulated acknowledgment: Crew B has read the briefing, while the regulated-material hold remains paused.
After Crew B acknowledges the briefing, the hold remains. Reading and clearance are separate states. Open full image

A related decision: the offline timeclock

The same LaborHounds project had a separate offline timeclock. After review found a database conflict, I chose a device-generated primary key so queued actions could refer to the same entry without a new migration. AI implemented the repair; the related note follows its retries, reloads and rejected punches. The timeclock is outside this demonstration. The commit and its regression cases are in the private LaborHounds repository; they do not establish field adoption.

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Catchwright

In this reconstruction of my retired product, a person reviews eight fields beside their source clauses. Only the four confirmed hourly rates reach the pay comparison. A held hourly-rate field keeps the hourly comparison incomplete.