An AI weekly project digest is a short, automatic summary of a project's open work: what moved, what is stuck and what is at risk. In AlianHub, the Reporter agent does this with its digest.ceo skill. It runs on a schedule, reads the open tasks and posts the digest on its own, while anything bigger, like moving stuck tasks to Blocked, waits for a person.
Key takeaways
- Nobody should spend Friday afternoon writing a status report by hand.
- The Reporter agent reads open tasks and posts what moved, what is stuck and what is at risk.
- Posting a digest is low risk, so an L3 agent can do it on a schedule, with Undo.
- Moving stuck tasks is a wider change. It waits in the AI Inbox.
- A spend cap keeps a weekly digest cheap and predictable.
Why status reports are the perfect first AI job
Status reports are repetitive, they follow a pattern and almost everyone dislikes writing them. They also matter. When they slip, stuck work hides until it is late.
That makes them an ideal first job for an agent. The output is read-only for the project. A weak digest is easy to ignore. A good one saves time every single week.
If a report follows the same shape every week, a person should not be typing it.
What the Reporter agent does
On the AI page, an example run of the Reporter agent shows the whole flow:
- Started on its schedule, Monday at 09:00.
- Read 14 open tasks in the Spring launch project.
- Posted a digest: what moved, what is stuck. This is low risk, so it acted on its own, with Undo.
- Proposed moving 2 stuck tasks to Blocked. Moves between lists wait for a person, so this went to the AI Inbox.
The example shows a spend cap of $4.20 used out of $20 that month. Your own figure will depend on your model and project size.
The skills behind it
| Skill | What it does | Risk |
|---|---|---|
digest.ceo (Reporter) | Reads open work, posts a short digest of what moved, what is stuck, what is at risk | Low |
project.guide (Project Guide) | Answers "what next" from the plan and proposes next tasks | Low |
wiki.upkeep | Lists stale pages and suggests updates | Low |
Each skill needs at least one task in the project it should report on. Skills are versioned, so you can dry-run, edit or retire them.
Digests on demand with Ask
Not every report has to wait for Monday. In the Ask box, the "Project status update" starter gives you what moved, what is stuck and what comes next, right now.
If you connect Claude or ChatGPT, the ready-made ask "Write the status report" does the same from your own AI app. Like all the ready-made asks, it shows you a result first. Details are on the Connect your AI guide.
Tip: use the scheduled digest for the team and Ask for yourself. The digest keeps everyone aligned; Ask answers the question you have five minutes before a client call.
How to do this in AlianHub
- Make sure a workspace AI key is set. Scheduled agents run server-side and need one.
- Open AI in the left menu and go to the Agents tab. Find or add a Reporter agent with the
digest.ceoskill. - Scope it to the project you want reported on and give it a monthly spend cap and daily action limit.
- Set its autonomy level to L3 so it may run on a schedule, and set the schedule, for example Monday at 09:00.
- Click Run now once to see a sample digest. Use Undo if you want to try again.
- Each Monday, check AI Inbox for its proposals, such as moving stuck tasks to Blocked, and choose Approve or Decline.
If you would rather review every digest before the team sees it, use L1 instead. The digest becomes a proposal.
A business scenario
A digital agency runs a dozen client projects. Account leads used to spend Monday morning reading boards and writing updates. Now a Reporter agent posts a digest on each project at 09:00, and leads only edit and forward.
The result: client reporting goes out earlier and more consistently, stuck tasks are flagged at the start of the week instead of at the deadline, and leads get their Monday mornings back for actual client work. Over time that is room to take on more clients without hiring another coordinator.
What makes a good digest
A digest is only useful if people read it. Keep these in mind:
- Short beats complete. What moved, what is stuck, what is at risk. That is enough.
- Stuck matters most. The value is in surfacing blocked work early.
- Same time, same place. A predictable Monday post builds a habit.
- Links, not paragraphs. Point to the task, do not retell it.
A digest nobody reads is just a cost. A digest people expect is a habit.
Beyond the Monday digest
Once one digest works, the same pattern covers other recurring reports:
- A Friday wrap-up for internal projects, posted by a second Reporter scoped to the ops board.
- A stale-docs list from
wiki.upkeep, run monthly so help pages and specs do not drift. - A "what next" answer from the Project Guide when someone asks on a task.
Each one is a separate agent with its own scope, level and spend cap, so a problem with one never affects the others. Start with the report your team complains about most.
Keeping it safe and cheap
Even a harmless job deserves limits. Every digest run is written to the audit log. The agent cannot delete tasks, mark them Done or touch billing. Its revision history shows any change to its settings.
On cost, the monthly spend cap is a hard ceiling, and the AI controls page shows cost per agent and per model. Pin a lighter model to the Reporter if digests are all it does.
FAQ
What is an AI weekly project digest?
It is an automatic summary of a project's open work, posted on a schedule. In AlianHub, the Reporter agent posts what moved, what is stuck and what is at risk.
Can the digest agent change my tasks?
Posting the digest runs on its own because it is low risk. Moving tasks between lists, such as to Blocked, is a wider change and waits in the AI Inbox.
Do I need an AI key for scheduled digests?
Yes. Scheduled agents run server-side, so they need a workspace key. For on-demand reports, people can use Ask or their own connected AI.
How much does a weekly digest cost?
It depends on your model and project size. You set a monthly spend cap per agent, so it can never exceed the number you choose.
Try the Reporter agent on the live demo, then send this post to whoever writes your Monday status report.