teams-channel-digest

name	teams-channel-digest
description	Summarize recent Microsoft Teams channel messages across one or more teams and deliver a formatted daily briefing. Use when asked to "summarize Teams channels", "daily Teams digest", "what happened in Teams today", "Teams channel briefing", "catch me up on Teams", "unread Teams summary", or when automating a daily Teams activity report.
license	MIT
metadata	{"version":"1.0.0","tags":["productivity"]}

Teams Channel Digest

A skill for summarizing recent Microsoft Teams channel activity across selected teams and channels, then delivering a structured daily briefing — either as a posted Teams message or a saved report.

When to Use This Skill

• User asks for a summary of recent Teams channel activity
• User wants a daily briefing of what happened in their Teams channels
• User says "catch me up on Teams", "what did I miss in Teams", or similar
• User wants to automate a recurring daily Teams digest
• User needs a written summary of discussions across multiple channels

Prerequisites

• Access to Microsoft Teams via msteams_get_teams, msteams_get_channels, msteams_get_channel_messages
• (Optional) write_blob or local_files if saving the report to storage
• (Optional) Access to a destination Teams channel if posting the briefing back

Configuration

Before running, confirm (or ask the user for) the following:

Parameter	Description	Default
target_teams	List of team names to monitor.	"none" Ask the user to specify
target_channels	Channel names to include per team.	"none" Ask the user to specify
lookback_hours	How many hours back to look for messages.	24
min_messages	Minimum number of messages in a channel to include it in the digest. Channels with fewer messages are skipped as inactive.	1
delivery_mode	How to deliver the digest: "teams" (post to a channel), "file" (save locally), or "both".	"file"
delivery_channel	If delivery_mode includes "teams", the name of the team+channel to post the digest to (e.g. "General > Announcements").	none

---

Important Constraints

• ALWAYS CONFIRM the list of teams and channels to monitor before fetching messages.
• NEVER fetch messages from channels the user has not explicitly approved.
• ALWAYS filter messages by the specified lookback window and minimum message count to avoid including inactive channels.
• ALWAYS summarize based on the actual message content; do not hallucinate or infer information that is not present in the messages.
• ALWAYS handle edge cases gracefully, such as channels with no messages, access issues, or messages that contain only attachments.
• NEVER include content from private channels or direct messages, as these may contain sensitive information.
• NEVER check an existing report for the same period before fetching new messages; always fetch fresh data to ensure the most up-to-date briefing.
• ALWAYS ask the user for which teams and channels to include in the digest, even if defaults are set, to ensure you have explicit permission to access those channels.

Step-by-Step Workflow

Step 1: Discover Teams and Channels

Retrieve the team listed in target_teams (do not fetch any other teams):

Tool: msteams_get_teams()

For each team listed in target_teams, retrieve its channels:

Tool: msteams_get_channels(team_id: "<team_id>")

Build a list of (team_name, channel_name, team_id, channel_id) tuples to process. Always filter by target_channels that are specified.

Note: Fetch teams first, then channels one team at a time — do not parallelize Teams API calls, as only one session can be open at a time.

---

Step 2: Fetch Recent Messages Per Channel

For each (team_id, channel_id) pair, fetch the most recent messages:

Tool: msteams_get_channel_messages(team_id: "<team_id>", channel_id: "<channel_id>", top: 50)

Filter messages client-side to only include those within lookback_hours of the current time. Discard channels where the filtered message count is below min_messages.

For each message, capture:

• Sender — display name of the author
• Timestamp — when it was sent
• Body — text content (strip HTML tags if present)
• Importance — normal, high, or urgent (if available)
• Replies — reply content and count of replies to this message thread (if available)
• Reply count — number of replies to this message thread (if available)

---

Step 3: Summarize Each Channel

For each active channel (those that passed the min_messages filter), produce:

1. Topic summary — 2-4 sentences describing the main themes discussed
2. Key decisions or action items — bullet list of any decisions made, tasks assigned, or follow-ups mentioned
3. Notable participants — the 2-3 most active contributors by message count
4. Sentiment — overall tone: positive, neutral, mixed, or urgent
5. Message count — total messages in the lookback window

Use your own reasoning to identify topics, decisions, and action items from the raw message text. Do not hallucinate — only report what is present in the messages.

---

Step 4: Identify Cross-Channel Themes

After summarizing all channels, look across all summaries and identify:

• Recurring topics — subjects discussed in 2+ channels
• Escalations — any issues marked urgent or that appear in multiple channels
• Org-wide action items — tasks or decisions that likely affect multiple teams

---

Step 5: Compose the Briefing Report

Assemble the final digest using this structure:

# 📋 Teams Daily Digest — [Team_Name] › [Channel_Name] — [Date] ([lookback_hours]h window)

## 🔑 Highlights
- [2-5 top-level bullets summarizing the most important activity across all channels]

## 🔁 Cross-Channel Themes
- [bullet per recurring topic or escalation — omit section if none]

## 📣 Channel Summaries

### [Team Name] › [Channel Name]
**Messages:** [N] | **Sentiment:** [sentiment] | **Top contributors:** [names]

[Topic summary paragraph]

**Key decisions / action items:**
- [bullet]
- [bullet]

---
[repeat for each active channel]

## 📊 Activity Snapshot

| Team | Channel | Messages | Sentiment |
|------|---------|----------|-----------|
| ... | ... | ... | ... |

## ℹ️ Coverage
- **Period:** Last [lookback_hours] hours
- **Teams monitored:** [N]
- **Channels monitored:** [N]
- **Channels with activity:** [N]
- **Generated at:** [timestamp UTC]

---

Step 6: Deliver the Briefing

Based on delivery_mode:

If delivery_mode includes "file":

Save the report using local_files:

Tool: local_files(action: "write",
  path: "~/reports/[channel_name]-teams-digest-YYYY-MM-DD.md",
  content: <report_markdown>)

Important! Replace [channel_name] with a sanitized version of the channel name or a generic name if multiple channels are included.

If delivery_mode includes "teams":

Locate the destination team and channel specified in delivery_channel, then post the digest. Because Teams messages have a character limit, post a short summary (~5 bullets) as the main message, and note that the full report is saved to file.

Tool: (post the summary to the target channel using available Teams messaging tools)

If delivery_mode is "both": Do both of the above.

---

Edge Cases

Situation	Handling
No messages in lookback window	Report "No activity in the last [N] hours" for that channel
Channel access denied	Note it as inaccessible in the Coverage section and continue
Message body is empty or contains only attachments	Note "[Attachment or media shared]" as the content
HTML in message body	Strip all HTML tags before summarizing
Very high message volume (100+)	Summarize the 50 most recent messages; note truncation
Single-word or emoji-only messages	Group and count these separately as "reactions / acknowledgements"
Bot/system messages	Filter out automated bot messages (sender is a bot) unless they contain meaningful content

---

Troubleshooting

Issue	Solution
msteams_get_teams returns empty list	User may not be in any teams; confirm access and ask user to specify team IDs manually
Channel messages return no results	Channel may be empty or access may be restricted; skip and note in report
Digest is too long for Teams message	Post only the Highlights + Activity Snapshot sections; attach full report as a file
Timestamp filtering removes all messages	The lookback window may be too short; suggest increasing lookback_hours

---

Example Output

# 📋 Teams Daily Digest - Engineering › General and Product › Planning — March 17, 2026 (24h window)

## 🔑 Highlights
- Engineering and Product both discussed the Q2 roadmap; a decision meeting is scheduled for Thursday.
- An urgent production issue was raised in #incidents and escalated to the on-call team.
- Three action items from today's standup were assigned to @alice, @bob, and @carol.
- The design team shared updated mockups for the onboarding flow.

## 🔁 Cross-Channel Themes
- **Q2 Roadmap** — discussed in Engineering > General and Product > Planning
- **Production Incident** — mentioned in Engineering > Incidents and Leadership > Updates

## 📣 Channel Summaries

### Engineering › General
**Messages:** 23 | **Sentiment:** Mixed | **Top contributors:** Alice, Bob, Carlos

The team discussed the upcoming Q2 sprint planning session and reviewed open
pull requests. A debate arose around adopting a new testing framework, with
no final decision reached yet.

**Key decisions / action items:**
- Schedule sprint planning for Wednesday at 10am — @Alice to send invite
- Bob to open a spike ticket for the testing framework evaluation

---

### Engineering › Incidents
**Messages:** 8 | **Sentiment:** Urgent | **Top contributors:** Carlos, On-Call Bot

A production timeout in the payments service was reported at 14:32 UTC.
Carlos escalated to the on-call team. The issue was resolved by 15:10 UTC.

**Key decisions / action items:**
- Post-mortem scheduled for Friday — @Carlos to lead

## 📊 Activity Snapshot

| Team | Channel | Messages | Sentiment |
|------|---------|----------|-----------|
| Engineering | General | 23 | Mixed |
| Engineering | Incidents | 8 | Urgent |
| Product | Planning | 14 | Positive |

## ℹ️ Coverage
- **Period:** Last 24 hours
- **Teams monitored:** 2
- **Channels monitored:** 6
- **Channels with activity:** 3
- **Generated at:** 2026-03-17T23:00:00Z

---

Tips for Best Results

• Run this skill daily at a fixed time (e.g., 8:00 AM) for consistent coverage
• Set min_messages: 3 to avoid cluttering the digest with low-traffic channels
• For large organizations, scope target_teams to only the teams you care about
• The 24-hour default lookback works well for daily digests; use 168 hours (7 days) for a weekly digest