Agent-Skills.md

Agent Skills: Pyramid Principle Communication

Structure high-stakes communication with the Pyramid Principle. Use when preparing executive summaries, recommendations, decision memos, or storyline-driven updates that need a clear answer-first flow and defensible support.

UncategorizedID: santos-sanz/lifeskills/pyramid-principle-structured-communication

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santos-sanz/lifeskills
santos-sanz
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pnpm dlx add-skill https://github.com/santos-sanz/lifeskills/tree/HEAD/skills/pyramid-principle-structured-communication

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skills/pyramid-principle-structured-communication/SKILL.md

Skill Metadata

Name
pyramid-principle-structured-communication
Description
Structure high-stakes communication with the Pyramid Principle. Use when preparing executive summaries, recommendations, decision memos, or storyline-driven updates that need a clear answer-first flow and defensible support.

Pyramid Principle Communication

Use $ARGUMENTS as initial context.

When to use this skill

  • Executive or leadership communication where the decision matters.
  • Recommendation memos that must be scanned quickly.
  • Storylines for presentations, updates, or board materials.
  • Any unclear draft that needs a single governing question and answer-first structure.

Required inputs

  • Audience and decision owner.
  • Governing question to answer.
  • Available evidence and major constraints.

Workflow

  1. Define one governing question and one decision objective.
  2. Draft the answer first as a one-sentence BLUF.
  3. Build 3-5 MECE support points with parallel phrasing.
  4. Choose logic mode per level: deductive or inductive, not both.
  5. Add evidence, implication, and risk for each support point.
  6. End with a decision, owner, date, and immediate next action.

Ask-first questions

Ask up to 3 questions before drafting:

  1. What exact decision must this communication drive?
  2. Who is the final decision owner and what is their risk tolerance?
  3. Which evidence is confirmed vs still assumed?

Assumption policy

  • If answers are incomplete, proceed with explicit assumptions.
  • Tag each assumption with confidence: high, medium, low.
  • Avoid fabricated data; request verification when confidence is low.

Output contract

Always produce these sections in order:

  1. Context
  2. Decision or Recommendation
  3. Analysis
  4. Risks
  5. Next Actions
  6. Assumptions

Guardrails

  • Keep one governing question; reject multi-question drift.
  • Do not mix recommendation with exploratory brainstorming in the same top level.
  • Use concrete language; avoid vague claims like "optimize" without mechanism.
  • Flag missing evidence when conclusions are not fully supported.

Resources

  • references/pyramid-rules.md - Rule set and anti-ambiguity checks.
  • references/scqa.md - SCQA framing and transitions.
  • templates/structured-storyline.md - Decision-ready output structure.
  • examples/pyramid-example.md - Golden example with partial information.

Keywords

pyramid principle, Minto, BLUF, executive communication, storyline, SCQA, structured recommendation