Purpose
Take one piece of product or technical content and produce audience-tuned versions for individual contributors, managers, directors, and executives — each calibrated for the altitude, attention span, and decision-making context of that level. Eliminates the manual rework of translating the same update up and down the org chart and prevents the common failure of sending an exec a 500-word engineering changelog.
When to Use
Invoke this skill when the user asks to:
- Rewrite a product update or release note for different audiences
- Turn a technical summary into an executive-ready version
- Adapt a status report for leadership vs. the working team
- Create a "leveled" version of an announcement (IC through exec)
- Reframe an incident, delay, or launch for different stakeholder groups
- Translate engineering detail into business language for a director or VP
Inputs Required
Before starting, collect:
- Source content: The original update, summary, or report to adapt (paste the full text)
- Update type: Launch / release / status / delay or slip / incident / roadmap change / general FYI
- Audience levels needed: Which of IC, Manager, Director, Executive to produce (default: all four)
- The "so what": The single most important thing each audience should take away
- Action needed: Is there a decision, approval, or action required — and from whom?
- Sensitivity: Is any part of this bad news, a risk, or politically delicate?
- Delivery channel: Slack / email / doc / meeting talking points — affects length and formatting
If update type or sensitivity is not provided, infer from the source content and note the assumption.
Instructions
Step 1: Extract the Core Facts
Before rewriting, distill the source into a neutral fact set:
- What happened / is happening (the event)
- Why it matters (impact on users, business, or timeline)
- What's next (next milestone or dependency)
- What (if anything) is needed (decision, resource, approval, awareness only)
- Any risk or bad news (surface it explicitly — it gets framed differently per level, never hidden)
This fact set is the shared source of truth; every version draws from it without inventing new details.
Step 2: Produce Each Audience Version
Generate the requested versions using the altitude rules below. Higher levels get less detail and more consequence; lower levels get more mechanism and more actionable specifics.
IC Version
- Altitude: Ground level — implementation and mechanism
- Detail density: High — technical specifics, dependencies, ticket/PR references, exact behavior changes
- Framing: "Here's what changed and what it means for your work"
- Length: 4–8 sentences or a tight bulleted changelog
- CTA: Concrete, task-level — what to test, migrate, unblock, or review
- Tone: Peer-to-peer, direct, jargon-fluent (technical terms allowed without explanation)
Manager Version
- Altitude: Team level — coordination, ownership, and near-term impact
- Detail density: Medium — enough mechanism to answer "will this affect my team?" without full technical depth
- Framing: "Here's what your team needs to know and do"
- Length: 5–8 sentences or short paragraph + 2–4 bullets
- CTA: Coordination-level — who owns what, what to flag upward, resourcing implications
- Tone: Operational, clear about dependencies and timelines, jargon defined on first use
Director Version
- Altitude: Portfolio level — trade-offs, cross-team impact, and progress against goals
- Detail density: Low-to-medium — outcomes and risks, not implementation
- Framing: "Here's the state of play and the trade-offs in front of us"
- Length: 3–5 sentences, lead with status and consequence
- CTA: Decision or escalation-level — what needs their air cover, prioritization, or sign-off
- Tone: Strategic, outcome-oriented, connects the update to a goal or metric; minimal jargon
Executive Version
- Altitude: Business level — impact, risk, and the one decision (if any)
- Detail density: Minimal — headline, business consequence, ask
- Framing: BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front) — the takeaway is the first sentence
- Length: 2–4 sentences maximum, or 3 bullets
- CTA: Binary and explicit — "No action needed" or "Need your decision on X by [date]"
- Tone: Confident, plain-language, zero jargon; assumes 15 seconds of attention
Step 3: Apply Sensitivity Framing
If the source contains bad news, a delay, or a risk, adjust framing per level — without concealing facts:
- IC/Manager: Full transparency on cause and remediation; blameless framing
- Director/Executive: Lead with impact and the plan, then the cause; pair every problem with a proposed path forward or a specific ask
- Never bury bad news at the bottom for higher levels — surface it in the first line with a mitigation
Step 4: Add a Delivery Note per Version
For each version, append a one-line practical note: recommended channel, best send timing, and whether it should be a message vs. a live conversation (bad news to executives is often better delivered live).
Output Format
- Structure: A brief extracted fact set, then one clearly labeled block per audience level in ascending altitude order (IC → Manager → Director → Executive)
- Length: 500–850 words total across all versions
- Format: Labeled sections; each version is a ready-to-paste block followed by an italicized delivery note
- Sections: Core Facts → IC Version → Manager Version → Director Version → Executive Version (only the levels requested)
- Tone: Each version carries its own calibrated tone per the altitude rules; the wrapper commentary is crisp and operational
Quality Checklist
Before delivering output, verify:
- [ ] Each requested audience version is present and clearly labeled
- [ ] Executive version leads with the bottom line and is 4 sentences or fewer
- [ ] Every version has an explicit CTA — including "No action needed" where true
- [ ] No facts appear in a higher version that are absent from the source content (no invention)
- [ ] Jargon decreases as altitude increases — the exec version contains no unexplained technical terms
- [ ] If the source contains bad news or risk, it is surfaced early in each version, never buried
Notes
- The most common mistake this skill prevents is sending a director or exec an update written at IC altitude — length is a symptom, but the real fix is changing what the version is about (mechanism vs. consequence)
- When there's a real decision required, the executive version should name the decision, the deadline, and the recommended option — leaders decide faster when given a default
- For live delivery (meetings, 1:1s), treat the version as talking points rather than a script — keep the CTA verbatim so nothing gets lost in conversation
- If the same update goes to multiple levels in one channel (e.g., a broad Slack post), lead with the executive version and nest the deeper detail below a "More detail for the team" divider
How to use this skill
This file is a Claude Code skill in Anthropic's standard format — markdown with YAML frontmatter at the top.
Installing in Claude Code:
~/.claude/skills/<folder-name>/SKILL.md— auto-loads in every session anywhere on your machine (recommended for skills you'll use across multiple projects)<your-project>/.claude/skills/<folder-name>/SKILL.md— auto-loads only when working in that project (recommended for project-specific skills)
Restart Claude Code or open a new session to register.
Using in Claude.ai, ChatGPT, Gemini, or other AI tools:
- Drag this file into a new chat, or copy and paste its contents
- Send your task or request as your next message — the AI will apply the skill where it fits
For Claude Code skill details: https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/skills