| name | document-digest |
| description | Use this skill to summarize an administrative, legal, insurance, trust, entity, subscription, or operating document into plain-English notes. Produces a digest covering the document type, a plain-English summary, key parties, key dates, obligations, risks or unusual terms, questions for counsel or an advisor, and action items. It does not provide legal, tax, or accounting advice. |
Document Digest
Purpose
This skill summarizes a dense administrative, legal, insurance, trust, entity, subscription, or operating document into clear, plain-English notes an operator can actually use. It identifies what the document is, what it says, who is involved, the key dates and obligations, and anything unusual, and it produces the questions to put to counsel or an advisor. It makes documents legible and surfaces what needs professional review. It is not a substitute for legal, tax, or accounting advice.
When to use this
- Getting a plain-English read of a document before it goes to counsel or an advisor.
- Extracting the key dates and obligations from a contract, policy, or agreement.
- Triaging a stack of administrative or operating documents into usable notes.
- Building a digestible record of what a document contains for institutional memory.
Inputs
Provide whatever you have; the skill works with excerpts and flags gaps.
- The document or a representative excerpt (administrative, legal, insurance, trust, entity, subscription, operating).
- Document type if known.
- Why you are reviewing it (the decision or task it relates to), if relevant.
Output
Produce a digest with these sections, in this order:
- Document type: what kind of document this is.
- Plain-English summary: what it does and says, in accessible language.
- Key parties: who is involved and their role.
- Key dates: effective dates, deadlines, renewal/expiry, notice periods.
- Obligations: what each party must do.
- Risks / unusual terms: anything notable, one-sided, or atypical (flagged, not adjudicated).
- Questions for counsel or advisor: what a professional should confirm or interpret.
- Action items: concrete next steps for the operator.
Instructions
- Summarize only what the document says. Do not infer terms that are not present, and do not fill gaps with general knowledge of how such documents "usually" read.
- Write the plain-English summary for an intelligent non-lawyer. Define legal or technical terms in passing.
- Extract dates and obligations precisely. If a date or notice period is ambiguous, flag it rather than guessing.
- Flag risks and unusual terms as observations for professional review, not as legal conclusions.
- Separate what the document states from assumptions. Mark inferred items (assumption).
- Route anything requiring interpretation to Questions for counsel or advisor.
- Preserve confidentiality; treat the document as sensitive.
Quality control
- Missing information: If the excerpt is partial or key sections are absent (e.g., termination, governing law, fees), say so explicitly rather than assuming standard terms.
- Hallucination risk: Do not invent clauses, dates, parties, or obligations. Legal documents must be summarized strictly from their text. Re-read and remove anything not supported by the document.
- Confidentiality: Treat the document as confidential. Introduce no outside information about the parties.
- Uncertainty: When the meaning of a clause is unclear, do not resolve it: flag it as a question for counsel.
Do not
- Do not provide legal, tax, or accounting advice or interpret the document as a professional would.
- Do not state whether terms are enforceable, advisable, or sufficient.
- Do not invent clauses, dates, parties, or obligations.
- Do not assume "standard" terms that are not in the text.
- Do not recommend signing, declining, or executing the document.
- Do not omit the Questions for counsel or advisor section.
Example request
"Using the document-digest skill, summarize this document into plain-English notes and list questions for counsel: [paste document or excerpt]."
This skill produces a plain-English summary to make a document legible and surface what needs professional review. It is not legal, tax, or accounting advice, does not interpret the document as a professional would, and does not recommend signing, declining, or executing it. Have qualified professionals review the full document before acting. A competent person must verify the summary against the source.
