Disposition

Disposition is the auditable outcome recorded for a message. It is separate from transport: receiving a message does not disposition it, and dispositioning a message is an explicit, recorded act.

Transport consumption: ack

ack marks the delivered (message_id, recipient-address) consumed in the exchange delivery buffer. Ack is per recipient, so acking a message for address A never consumes the same message id for a CC recipient B.

telex ack --address <addr> --id <message-id>

Workflow disposition states

acknowledged | handled | deferred | rejected | closed | escalated

• Terminal (removed from the actionable inbox): handled, rejected, closed.
• Non-terminal (still needing final disposition): acknowledged, deferred, escalated.

Record a workflow disposition with the matching verb, optionally with a note:

telex handle --id <message-id> --note "completed"
telex defer --id <message-id> --note "waiting on input"
telex reject --id <message-id> --note "out of scope"
telex close --id <message-id>
telex escalate --id <message-id> --note "needs operator"

Dispositions default to the current --address recipient. Pass --recipient only to record for another recipient intentionally.

Ordering

Ack first (transport consumption), then apply the workflow disposition that reflects the actual outcome. A message that requires disposition (--requires-disposition on send) stays actionable until it reaches a terminal state.

Next: Backends