executive-brief

name

executive-brief

description

Use when the assistant needs to synthesize multiple rough inputs — messy notes, scattered emails, transcript excerpts, meeting context, or uploaded documents — into a concise executive briefing. Especially relevant for founder prep, leadership updates, weekly operating briefs, post-meeting readouts, launch status briefs, partnership updates, hiring or finance summaries, and any situation where conflicting or incomplete inputs must be turned into decision-ready output.

Executive Brief

Overview

Turn messy multi-source input into a concise, decision-ready briefing for a founder, ceo, coo, gm, or senior operator.

Optimize for signal, not comprehensiveness theater. Surface what changed, what matters now, what is at risk, what requires a decision, and what is still unknown.

Consult references/templates.md for default output structures and references/review-checklist.md for the final quality pass.

Operating Rules

• Read all provided material before drafting.
• Treat each meaningful statement as a claim to classify, not as truth to repeat.
• Mark statements as Confirmed, Inferred, or Missing / Unverified.
• Do not invent facts, dates, owners, numbers, or decisions.
• Do not smooth over contradictions to make the story neater.
• Prefer short bullets and compact sections over long prose.
• Prioritize decision usefulness over exhaustive recap.
• Keep the brief neutral, direct, and operational.
• Prepare material for human review before any external-facing use.

Workflow

1. Normalize the inputs

Extract the raw material into atomic items:

• status updates
• facts and metrics
• assumptions or interpretations
• requests or asks
• deadlines and dates
• blockers and risks
• decisions already made
• decisions still needed
• ownership signals
• unresolved questions

Rewrite messy phrasing into clear plain language without changing meaning.

2. Weigh evidence

Use the strongest available evidence from the inputs.

Prefer, in order:

1. direct statements in a primary document or explicit written decision
2. recent and specific status updates
3. meeting notes or transcripts that clearly attribute a view
4. summary commentary or secondhand interpretation

If evidence is weak, incomplete, or secondhand, label it accordingly.

3. Separate fact from inference

Apply these definitions consistently:

• Confirmed: directly supported by the provided inputs
• Inferred: a reasonable synthesis or implication that is not explicitly stated
• Missing / Unverified: important context that is absent, contradictory, or too weak to trust

Never upgrade an inference into a confirmed fact just because it feels likely.

4. Resolve what matters most

Rank points by executive value. Elevate items that answer one or more of these:

• What changed?
• What matters now?
• What needs a decision?
• What is at risk?
• What is blocked?
• What has a deadline?
• What could create delay, cost, reputational damage, or strategic drift?

Cut or demote low-signal detail.

5. Handle conflicts explicitly

When inputs conflict:

1. name the conflict clearly
2. identify the competing claims
3. prefer the most direct, recent, and specific source if that resolves the conflict
4. if not resolvable from the inputs, keep the conflict visible and mark it unresolved
5. mention the conflict in the executive summary if it changes the recommendation or urgency

Do not guess. Clean language is good; fake certainty is sludge.

6. Choose the right briefing mode

Default to the standard brief structure.

Switch to Rapid Brief when the request is urgent, the input is partial, or the executive mainly needs the top signal fast.

Switch to Deep Brief when the situation is complex, multi-stakeholder, high-stakes, or spread across many messy sources.

7. Draft the brief

Use the templates in references/templates.md.

Always make the following easy to find:

• the most important conclusion
• the current situation
• the highest-confidence facts
• unresolved questions
• decisions needed
• risks and blockers
• concrete next steps
• likely owners
• source notes

8. Stress-test the draft

Before finalizing, verify that:

• each major claim is either grounded in the inputs or clearly labeled as inferred
• decisions are not buried in prose
• missing information is called out explicitly
• risk items are distinct from open questions
• recommendations follow from the evidence
• the brief is shorter than the raw material by a lot, not by a little

Default Output

Use this structure unless the user asks for a different format:

1. Title
2. Executive Summary
3. Current Situation
4. Key Facts
5. Open Questions
6. Decisions Needed
7. Risks / Blockers
8. Recommended Next Steps
9. Owner Suggestions
10. Appendix / Source Notes

Compression Rules

• Keep the executive summary to the highest-signal points only.
• Prefer 3 to 6 bullets in the executive summary.
• Turn timelines into explicit dates when available.
• Keep most bullets to one sentence.
• Move useful but non-essential detail into the appendix.
• Exclude tangents, throat-clearing, rhetorical filler, and transcript fluff.

Missing Information Rules

If critical context is missing, do not block the workflow. Produce the best possible brief with visible uncertainty.

State what is missing, why it matters, and how it limits confidence.

If no explicit executive decision is present, separate:

• Confirmed decisions needed from the inputs
• Likely decisions to consider inferred from the situation

Failure Recovery

If the draft starts turning into a summary dump, re-rank every section by executive usefulness and cut aggressively.

If the inputs are highly contradictory, convert the uncertainty into a visible section rather than trying to reconcile it by force.

If recommendations are weak, tie each one to a fact or inference label.

If the evidence is too thin, produce a limited brief and say so plainly.

Final Standard

Write like a sharp chief of staff preparing a founder for action, not like a note-taker trying to prove attendance.