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Bruno Ashford @brunoashfordSubscribeModule 9 · Lesson 9.2 · 11 min
Operations: Inventory, Scheduling, Vendors
Automate the recurring operational checks that keep the business running: stock levels, staff schedules and supplier follow-ups.
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1Collect your operational exports in one folder
Create an ops folder and drop in the files you already have: a stock CSV from your store or POS, a schedule export from your booking tool, a supplier price list. If a tool has a connector, you can use it later (Module 6), but files are the fastest safe start. On Windows PowerShell, create each folder with its own mkdir command, or simply in File Explorer.
mkdir -p ops/inventory ops/schedule ops/vendors2Write your rules in plain English
Tell Claude what good looks like: minimum stock per product, maximum jobs per technician per day, acceptable price change from a supplier. Put these rules in your CLAUDE.md or in a rules file so every run uses the same thresholds.
Create ops/rules.md with our operating rules: reorder any product when stock falls below 3 weeks of average sales, flag any technician with more than 5 jobs in a day, and flag any supplier price increase above 5 percent versus last month. Ask me for any number you are unsure about.3Run the weekly operations check
Ask Claude to read the latest exports, apply the rules and give you a short exceptions report. Only exceptions: if everything is fine, the report should say so in one line.
Read the latest files in ops/inventory, ops/schedule and ops/vendors. Apply the rules in ops/rules.md. Give me an exceptions report only: what needs a decision, why, and your suggested action. Save it as ops/reports/ops-check-YYYY-MM-DD.md with today's date.4Draft the actions, do not send them
For each exception, let Claude prepare the next step: a purchase order draft, a rescheduling suggestion, an email to the supplier asking about the price change. Drafts go to a folder for you to approve. Sending comes later, and only with the approval rules from Module 11.
For each item in today's exceptions report, draft the action: purchase order lines for reorders, a proposed new schedule for overbooked technicians, and a short, polite email to any supplier with a price increase. Save drafts in ops/drafts. Do not send anything.5Turn it into a skill
When the check has run well for two or three weeks, package it as a skill so anyone on the team can run it with the same rules. In Module 10 you will schedule it to run on its own every Monday at 7am.
Operations problems rarely arrive as a crisis. They arrive as a quiet spreadsheet that nobody opened on Monday: a product that sold out on Wednesday, a technician double-booked on Thursday, a supplier invoice that doubled without anyone noticing. By Friday it is a crisis.
An agent is very good at the boring vigilance that humans skip. It can read your stock export, your booking calendar export and your supplier price list every week, compare them against rules you set, and hand you a short list of things that need a decision. You stay the decision maker. The agent becomes the person who always checks.
Key points
- Agents are best at the dull vigilance humans skip.
- Rules in plain English make every run consistent.
- Exceptions only: a report nobody reads is worse than no report.
- Draft actions freely, send them only with approval.
Avoid
- Asking for a full summary of everything instead of exceptions.
- Changing thresholds in the prompt each week instead of in the rules file.
- Letting the agent place orders or email suppliers before you trust the checks.
- Feeding it stale exports and trusting the result.
A UK skincare brand with 180 SKUs used to discover stock-outs from customer complaints. The owner now exports stock and the last 90 days of sales every Monday, and Claude flags the products that will run out within three weeks, plus two suppliers whose prices crept up. In the first month the check caught four stock-outs before they happened and one 12 percent price rise that nobody had noticed. The whole routine takes her ten minutes of reviewing instead of an hour of scrolling.