Automating Standups With Build-Standup
The build-standup ClawFlows workflow generates your daily standup update from Git activity, issue tracker, and notes. Here's how it works and how to use it.
Daily standups are a productivity tax paid in increments. Ten minutes of prep in the morning to figure out what you did yesterday, what you're doing today, and what's blocking you. Ten minutes that could have been the start of a focus session. Multiply by 250 work days and you've lost 40 hours a year to the ritual.
The build-standup workflow from ClawFlows pays that tax for you. It reads your Git activity, your issue tracker, your notes — whatever sources you configure — and generates a clean standup update in about 15 seconds. The update is structured, accurate, and usually better than the one you'd write manually because it doesn't forget the small stuff.
Key Takeaways
- build-standup is a ClawFlows workflow in the Work & Meetings category that generates daily standup updates automatically.
- It reads multiple sources — Git commits, PR activity, issue tracker changes, notes — and assembles them into yesterday/today/blockers format.
- It runs in 15 seconds compared to 10+ minutes of manual prep.
- It catches small wins that humans forget when writing updates from memory.
- It's customizable to match your team's exact standup format, whether you use yesterday/today/blockers, goals/progress, or something else.
What the Workflow Does
When you invoke build-standup, the workflow runs through a series of data-gathering and summarization steps:
- Reads your Git activity since yesterday's standup time — commits authored, branches pushed, PRs opened or merged
- Queries your issue tracker for tickets you touched, moved, or resolved
- Scans your notes directory for daily notes or work logs from yesterday
- Pulls calendar context to see what meetings you attended
- Assembles a draft in your team's standup format
- Outputs to a destination — terminal, Slack, file, or clipboard
The entire run takes about 15 seconds on a normal dev machine. The output is ready to paste into your standup channel or read aloud in your sync meeting.
How Accurate Is It?
In my experience, more accurate than what I write from memory. I routinely forget small wins — a bug I fixed Tuesday afternoon, a PR I reviewed, a discussion thread I resolved in Slack. The workflow sees all of it because it's reading the data directly, not relying on my recall.
The Format
The default output looks something like this:
Yesterday:
- Shipped the search filter fix (PR #432)
- Reviewed and merged @teammate's refactor PR
- Debugged the flaky test in the auth suite (WIP)
Today:
- Finish the flaky test investigation
- Start on issue #441 (payment webhook)
Blockers:
- Waiting on design feedback for #438
Structured, scannable, no padding. You can customize the format to match your team — some teams prefer "goals/progress", some use "wins/plans/needs", and some have a more elaborate template. Edit the workflow definition and it adapts.
We cover authoring changes to workflows in Writing Your First Custom ClawFlow.
Sources It Can Read
build-standup is designed to be source-flexible. Out of the box, it supports:
- Git (local repos and remote hosts like GitHub, GitLab)
- GitHub Issues and PRs
- Linear, Jira, and Asana through their respective skills
- Obsidian, Notion, and Apple Notes for daily work logs
- Calendar for meeting context
- Slack for threads you participated in
Each source is a separate skill invocation in the workflow. If you don't use Linear, you remove that step. If you use a tool that isn't supported, you write or install a skill for it and add it.
A Morning Routine That Works
For teams with 9am standups, the routine I recommend is:
- 8:45am — Run
morning-briefingto see the day (profiled in Morning Briefing Workflow: Start Your Day Right) - 8:50am — Run
build-standupto generate your update - 8:52am — Glance at the update, adjust anything that needs context a human would add
- 8:55am — Post it in Slack or read it in the meeting
- 9:00am — Standup starts, you're already done prepping
That's five minutes of total standup-related work instead of 15. The savings compound because you're no longer starting the morning with ritual overhead.
What About Async Standups?
If your team uses async standups in Slack or a tool like Geekbot, build-standup is even more valuable. You post the output directly and you're done. No typing, no remembering, no recap. The workflow becomes a 15-second daily obligation instead of a five-minute one.
Team Adoption Patterns
Teams that adopt build-standup tend to follow one of two patterns:
Individual adoption: Each engineer installs and runs it themselves. The team sees higher-quality updates over time but never explicitly discusses the tool.
Team adoption: The team agrees to use build-standup together and customizes the format centrally. This is better for consistency but requires a decision to adopt.
Either pattern works. The workflow is free, open source, and doesn't require team buy-in to deliver value.
Pairing With Other Workflows
build-standup is part of a broader family of work-meeting workflows in ClawFlows. Pair it with:
morning-briefing— for day contextactivate-focus-mode— after the standup, for deep workprep-for-meeting— for other meetings in your calendarcheck-email— covered in Check-Email Workflow: Inbox Zero Automated
The work-meetings category is one of the denser areas of ClawFlows for a reason — the overhead of knowledge work is exactly what automation should target.
FAQ
Does it require access to my private repos?
It uses whatever credentials you've already configured for your Git skill. If your Git setup can see a private repo, the workflow can too. It doesn't store or transmit credentials itself.
Can I review before posting?
Yes. By default, the workflow outputs to your terminal so you can review. You can also configure it to save to a file for review, or go straight to Slack with a confirmation step.
What if I work on multiple projects?
build-standup queries all configured sources and assembles a cross-project update. Many engineers who work on 3+ repos find this especially useful because manually tracking all of them is painful.
Does it handle time zones?
Yes. It uses your local time to determine the "since last standup" window. Remote teams can configure per-user time zones.
Can I use it for weekly updates too?
Absolutely. Pass a flag to change the time window from 24 hours to a week (or any duration), and the workflow generates a weekly summary instead. Many users run it every Friday for their weekly status update.
Reclaim Your Standup Time
If standups are stealing ten minutes of your morning, build-standup is the cheapest fix available. One workflow, 15 seconds, and your standup prep is done. Install ClawFlows (see How to Install ClawFlows in One Command) and try it tomorrow morning.
Explore all 113 workflows at aiskill.market/workflows or submit your own.