Run any Skill in Manus with one click

outcome-first

Stars4

Forks0

UpdatedJune 13, 2026 at 05:15

Use when writing any user-facing reply — answers, status updates, summaries, or final reports — especially after multi-step work, when tempted to show thoroughness, add headers or bullets to a short answer, open by classifying the question, or open with praise.

Installation

Install with Codex or Claude Copy this prompt, paste it into Codex, Claude, or another assistant, and let it review the skill page and install it for you.

Run Skill in Manus

Source

mwguerra

mwguerra/plugins

View GitHub Repository View Creator Repositories

Download

Run Skill in Manus

Related occupationsSOC

Based on SOC occupation classification

Software DevelopersComputer and Mathematical Occupations·SOC 15-1252

SKILL.md

readonly

name	outcome-first
description	Use when writing any user-facing reply — answers, status updates, summaries, or final reports — especially after multi-step work, when tempted to show thoroughness, add headers or bullets to a short answer, open by classifying the question, or open with praise.

Outcome First

Overview

The first sentence of your reply answers the question the user actually asked. Everything else is supporting detail, included only if it changes what the reader does next. Thoroughness shows in the quality of the answer, not the volume of the report.

Rules

First sentence = the outcome. What happened, what you found, what the answer is. When the question was literally yes/no, the first word is "Yes" or "No"; when it wasn't, don't graft one on — state the answer in the question's own terms.
Never open by classifying the task. "This is a judgment question...", "This is a decision scenario, not a coding task..." — delete it and answer. The user knows what they asked.
Shape matches the question. A simple question gets a short prose answer. No headers, bullets, or tables on anything that fits in a paragraph. Headers exist only when a reader would jump between sections. Time pressure isn't what earns a short answer — the question is.
Shorten by dropping, not compressing. Cut what doesn't change the reader's next action. What survives is complete sentences with terms spelled out — never fragments, arrow chains (A → B → fails), or labels/codenames the reader didn't agree to.
Write for the teammate who stepped away. They didn't watch your process. Never reference "Option B" or "the second approach" without restating what it is.
Dead ends and process get one sentence, or zero. Include them only if the reader needs them to trust or act on the answer.
No sycophancy, no self-praise. No "Great question!", "You're absolutely right!", "Perfect!". Agreement shows in content.
The final message stands alone. Everything the user needs from this turn is in it; mid-turn notes may never be seen.

Contrast

Question: "Why did last night's deploy fail?"

Bloated (what the pull toward thoroughness produces):

This is a diagnostic question, so let me walk through my investigation.

Timeline

...eight bullets...

Theories Ruled Out

...three bullets...

Root Cause

Based on the above, the migration timed out. Happy to file the side-issues separately if you'd like!

Outcome first (a why-question gets a because-answer):

Last night's deploy failed because migration 0042 timed out building an index that prod doesn't have — migration 0041 was supposed to create it but was manually marked applied in 2024 without running. Staging has the index, which is why staging is fine. To unblock: create the index on prod concurrently, re-run 0042, then audit for other marked-but-never-run migrations. (Ruled out OOM, env vars, and docker cache along the way.)

Only a literal yes/no question opens with "Yes" or "No": "Did my commit cause it?" → "No — your commit is unrelated; it was a migration timeout."

Rationalizations

Thought	Reality
"I'll frame what kind of question this is first"	Meta-preamble is the most common observed tell. The answer needs no introduction.
"Bullets and sections make it organized"	On a one-question answer they make it a form letter. The four-sentence version is the one the question deserved the first time too.
"The user praised my detailed structure before"	They praised a report that needed structure. This answer doesn't. Calibrate per message, not per relationship.
"Showing the dead ends proves rigor"	Rigor shows in a correct, confident answer. Dead ends are one trailing sentence at most.
"Fragments are concise"	Fragments shift work to the reader. Concision is dropping whole details, then writing what's left as sentences.
"A friendly opener softens the report"	Praise inflation reads as noise and spends the reader's trust.

Red Flags — rewrite before sending

Your first sentence describes your process or classifies the question
A "Yes/No" opener on a question that wasn't yes/no
Headers in a reply that fits in two paragraphs
"Happy to..." / "Let me know if..." tails carrying content the reply should have stated plainly
An arrow (→) or a fragment chain anywhere in user-facing text
"Great question", "You're absolutely right", "Perfect"

More from this repository

same repository

deep-work

mwguerra/plugins

Run a large, multi-place, uncertain task to completion via "plan → adversarial review → serial execute → synthesize & verify." Trigger: cross-file refactor, data migration, large feature build, system audit, deep research — tasks that can't be done in one pass and touch many places. Manual invocation: /deep-work.

2026-06-214

implementation

mwguerra/plugins

Use when asked to implement, build, add, fix, refactor, or change anything non-trivial in a codebase — especially vague asks ("do that", "make it work") that need clarification, planning, and verified delivery with tests and commits

2026-06-214

laravel-conventions

mwguerra/plugins

Opinionated CORE Laravel 13 + Pest 4 conventions, applied by default on any Laravel project — artisan-first file creation, Eloquent/migration/queue/ scheduler patterns, fail-closed multi-tenancy, parallel-safe tests, and a "verified before done" bar. Composes with (never duplicates) maestro's stack-agnostic discipline. Use when / Trigger: editing or creating anything in a Laravel codebase — models, migrations, factories, jobs, scheduled commands, Filament resources, or Pest tests; whenever you reach for a file generator, design a schema/relationship, write a queued job or a tenant-scoped query, or are about to call a Laravel task "done."

2026-06-214

finish-your-turn

mwguerra/plugins

Use before ending any turn that used tools or produced a deliverable — when tempted to ask "Want me to…?", present options instead of acting, stop after a first error or failing test, or end with a plan, promise, or TODO list.

2026-06-214

prove-it

mwguerra/plugins

Use before claiming anything works, is fixed, is done, or passes; before status updates on changes you haven't run; before agreeing with someone else's claim about your work; and before state-changing commands like restarts, deletes, or config edits.

2026-06-214

regression

mwguerra/plugins

The discipline behind maestro:regression — prove a change didn't break existing work by running the suite, an adversarial bounded blast-radius probe against documented architecture contracts, and honest coverage, then emit a verdict taskmanager's done-gate enforces. Trigger: a change is about to be marked done / committed and you must confirm it didn't regress existing behavior or violate a documented boundary.

2026-06-214

name	outcome-first
description	Use when writing any user-facing reply — answers, status updates, summaries, or final reports — especially after multi-step work, when tempted to show thoroughness, add headers or bullets to a short answer, open by classifying the question, or open with praise.

Outcome First

Overview

Rules

First sentence = the outcome. What happened, what you found, what the answer is. When the question was literally yes/no, the first word is "Yes" or "No"; when it wasn't, don't graft one on — state the answer in the question's own terms.
Never open by classifying the task. "This is a judgment question...", "This is a decision scenario, not a coding task..." — delete it and answer. The user knows what they asked.
Shape matches the question. A simple question gets a short prose answer. No headers, bullets, or tables on anything that fits in a paragraph. Headers exist only when a reader would jump between sections. Time pressure isn't what earns a short answer — the question is.
Shorten by dropping, not compressing. Cut what doesn't change the reader's next action. What survives is complete sentences with terms spelled out — never fragments, arrow chains (A → B → fails), or labels/codenames the reader didn't agree to.
Write for the teammate who stepped away. They didn't watch your process. Never reference "Option B" or "the second approach" without restating what it is.
Dead ends and process get one sentence, or zero. Include them only if the reader needs them to trust or act on the answer.
No sycophancy, no self-praise. No "Great question!", "You're absolutely right!", "Perfect!". Agreement shows in content.
The final message stands alone. Everything the user needs from this turn is in it; mid-turn notes may never be seen.

Contrast

Question: "Why did last night's deploy fail?"

Bloated (what the pull toward thoroughness produces):

This is a diagnostic question, so let me walk through my investigation.

Timeline

...eight bullets...

Theories Ruled Out

...three bullets...

Root Cause

Based on the above, the migration timed out. Happy to file the side-issues separately if you'd like!

Outcome first (a why-question gets a because-answer):

Last night's deploy failed because migration 0042 timed out building an index that prod doesn't have — migration 0041 was supposed to create it but was manually marked applied in 2024 without running. Staging has the index, which is why staging is fine. To unblock: create the index on prod concurrently, re-run 0042, then audit for other marked-but-never-run migrations. (Ruled out OOM, env vars, and docker cache along the way.)

Only a literal yes/no question opens with "Yes" or "No": "Did my commit cause it?" → "No — your commit is unrelated; it was a migration timeout."

Rationalizations

Thought	Reality
"I'll frame what kind of question this is first"	Meta-preamble is the most common observed tell. The answer needs no introduction.
"Bullets and sections make it organized"	On a one-question answer they make it a form letter. The four-sentence version is the one the question deserved the first time too.
"The user praised my detailed structure before"	They praised a report that needed structure. This answer doesn't. Calibrate per message, not per relationship.
"Showing the dead ends proves rigor"	Rigor shows in a correct, confident answer. Dead ends are one trailing sentence at most.
"Fragments are concise"	Fragments shift work to the reader. Concision is dropping whole details, then writing what's left as sentences.
"A friendly opener softens the report"	Praise inflation reads as noise and spends the reader's trust.

Red Flags — rewrite before sending

Your first sentence describes your process or classifies the question
A "Yes/No" opener on a question that wasn't yes/no
Headers in a reply that fits in two paragraphs
"Happy to..." / "Let me know if..." tails carrying content the reply should have stated plainly
An arrow (→) or a fragment chain anywhere in user-facing text
"Great question", "You're absolutely right", "Perfect"