Monday

Your assistant reads the board, its columns and its items, then tells you the state of things in sentences instead of a grid. You can ask about one group, one owner, or the whole board. Reading a board changes nothing on it.

What you end up with. A written rundown of the board's current state, by status and by owner.

Start with it bringing you the information and you deciding.

Never without. Check which board it read. Most accounts carry several boards with near identical names, and a confident answer about the wrong one reads exactly like a right one.

Built on: Get boards / Get board columns / Get items page

Instead of scanning rows, it filters the board by column value and returns what has been sitting in one status too long. It can pull the user list at the same time, so each stalled item comes back with a name against it.

What you end up with. A short list of stalled items with the person responsible for each.

Start with it bringing you the information and you deciding.

Never without. Agree what your status labels mean before you act on the list. Blocked in one team's vocabulary is waiting on the client in another's.

Built on: List items by column values / Get items page / List users

You give it the commitments in plain sentences and it creates the items. It reads the board's column schema first, so status, owner and date values land in the right fields rather than in a note at the end.

What you end up with. New items on the board, one per commitment, with owners and dates set.

Start with it doing the work and checking with you.

Never without. Read the items back before you tell anyone the board is current. An item filed under the wrong owner is worse than a missing one, because somebody will rely on it.

Built on: Create Item From Natural Language / Create item / Get board columns

It can set a column value and move an item into a different group, across a list of items in one pass. Setting a status overwrites what was there, and monday can be told to create a label when the one you named does not exist, which is how a board ends up with three versions of Done.

What you end up with. A board that matches what you just said out loud, item by item.

Start with it doing the work and checking with you.

Never without. Give it the exact label names your board already uses. Left to guess, it can add a new label rather than pick the existing one, and nobody notices until the reporting splits.

Built on: Change simple column value / Move item to group / Get items page

It creates the board, adds the columns you describe, and fills in the first items. This is quicker than duplicating a template and editing it down, and it is easy to check because the whole thing is visible at once.

What you end up with. A new board with its columns and its starting items already in place.

Start with it doing the work and checking with you.

Never without. Say which workspace it goes in. A board created in the wrong workspace inherits that workspace's sharing, and people you did not have in mind can read it.

Built on: Create a Monday board / Create column / Create item

It can find them by column value and delete them. Deleting an item through monday's API removes it for good rather than moving it to a recycle bin, so the workable shape is two passes: one that lists the exact items, and one that deletes only the list you approved.

What you end up with. A board holding current work only, plus a saved list of what was removed.

Start with it doing the work and checking with you.

Never without. Never hand it a filter and let it delete the matches. Have it list the item names and IDs, approve that exact list, and keep a copy, because deleting a monday item is irreversible through the API.

Built on: List items by column values / Get items page / Delete item