--- name: technical-narrative-builder description: "Restructures technical architecture, system design, or implementation detail into three audience-calibrated narratives — engineer, executive, and partner stakeholder — each with its own framing, depth, proof points, and call to action. Use when translating a technical solution into a story that lands with a non-engineering audience, preparing an architecture review deck, writing a solution brief for executives, or aligning a partner on a technical integration." argument-hint: "[technical-topic] [audiences]" allowed-tools: ["Read"] --- # Technical Narrative Builder ## Purpose Transform a technical solution — architecture, integration, migration, or system design — into three distinct narratives calibrated for engineers, executives, and partner stakeholders, each preserving accuracy while matching the depth, vocabulary, and decision the audience actually cares about. Eliminates the "one deck for everyone" problem that loses technical credibility with engineers and business relevance with executives. ## When to Use Invoke this skill when the user asks to: - Turn an architecture or system design into a story for a non-engineering audience - Prepare a solution brief, one-pager, or narrative for an executive sponsor - Reframe technical detail for a partner or customer stakeholder in an integration - Build an architecture review or design doc that works for mixed audiences - Explain a migration, refactor, or platform decision in business terms - Translate "what we built" into "why it matters" for a specific reader ## Inputs Required Before starting, collect: - **The technical topic**: The architecture, system, integration, or decision to be narrated (2–4 sentences or a diagram description) - **Target audiences**: Which of engineer / executive / partner stakeholder are needed (one, two, or all three) - **The decision or action being sought**: What each reader should think, approve, or do after reading - **Business context**: The problem this technical work solves and any deadline, cost, or risk pressure - **Proof available**: Benchmarks, metrics, uptime, cost figures, or reference customers that can support claims - **Constraints or tradeoffs**: Known limitations, tech debt, or decisions that were deliberately deferred - **Sensitivity level**: Anything confidential, speculative, or not yet committed that must be softened or excluded If audiences are unspecified, default to producing all three narratives. If the sought decision is unclear, infer it from business context and state the assumption. ## Instructions ### Step 1: Extract the Technical Core Before writing any narrative, distill the topic into a shared factual base that every version draws from: - **The system in one sentence**: What it does, stated without jargon - **The three-layer decomposition**: Component layer (the parts), behavior layer (how they interact), outcome layer (what the business gets) - **The central tradeoff**: The one meaningful decision or constraint that shaped the design - **The proof anchor**: The single strongest supporting fact (a metric, benchmark, or reference) This core stays constant across narratives — only the framing, depth, and emphasis change. Never let two narratives contradict on facts. ### Step 2: Build the Engineer Narrative Audience motivation: correctness, maintainability, and whether the design holds up under scrutiny. - **Open with the technical problem**, not the business win — engineers trust problem framing before solution - **Lead depth-first**: name the actual components, protocols, data flows, and failure modes - **State the tradeoff explicitly** and defend it — engineers distrust narratives that hide the costs - **Include the "why not X" section**: the rejected alternatives and why they lost - **Proof format**: benchmarks, latency/throughput numbers, error budgets, or architecture diagrams - **Call to action**: review, approve, contribute, or adopt — framed as a technical judgment, not a sale - Vocabulary: precise and unhedged; assume domain fluency ### Step 3: Build the Executive Narrative Audience motivation: risk, cost, speed, and competitive position — not implementation. - **Open with the business outcome or risk**, stated in one sentence a non-technical reader grasps instantly - **Use the "so what" chain**: technical fact → business consequence → decision implication. Never state a technical fact without its business meaning - **Collapse the architecture** into 3–4 conceptual blocks — no protocol names, no component-level detail - **Quantify wherever possible**: dollars, time-to-market, headcount, downtime avoided, revenue enabled - **Name the tradeoff as a business bet**, not a technical constraint - **Proof format**: a metric tied to money or time; one comparison to the status quo or a competitor - **Call to action**: approve budget, greenlight, endorse, or prioritize — with the cost of inaction stated - Vocabulary: plain business language; one strong analogy allowed, no more ### Step 4: Build the Partner Stakeholder Narrative Audience motivation: how this affects *their* systems, roadmap, and mutual value. - **Open with the shared goal** and what the integration unlocks for both sides - **Frame from their side of the boundary**: what they connect to, what they must build, what stays their responsibility - **Make the interface explicit**: APIs, data contracts, SLAs, ownership lines — partners need certainty at the seam - **Address the "what changes for us" question** directly — effort, timeline, and dependencies on their team - **Name shared risks and how they're mitigated** — partners disengage when risk feels one-sided - **Proof format**: reference integrations, SLA commitments, or reliability track record - **Call to action**: co-sign scope, commit resources, agree on the interface contract, or schedule the next working session - Vocabulary: collaborative and precise at the boundary; internal-only detail excluded ### Step 5: Consistency and Sensitivity Pass - Verify no factual contradiction across the three narratives - Confirm anything flagged as confidential or speculative is excluded from the partner version and softened elsewhere - Ensure each narrative ends on its distinct, audience-appropriate call to action ## Output Format - **Structure**: One shared "Technical Core" summary, then three clearly separated narrative sections - **Length**: 800–1,200 words total; each narrative roughly 200–350 words - **Format**: Structured document — headed sections with short paragraphs; the engineer version may use a bulleted "why not X" block - **Sections**: Technical Core → Engineer Narrative → Executive Narrative → Partner Stakeholder Narrative (include only the audiences requested) - **Tone**: Engineer version — precise and peer-level; executive version — decisive and outcome-first; partner version — collaborative and boundary-clear ## Quality Checklist Before delivering output, verify: - [ ] The Technical Core is stated once and every narrative is factually consistent with it - [ ] The engineer narrative names actual components/protocols and includes a rejected-alternatives section - [ ] Every technical fact in the executive narrative is paired with a business consequence — no orphaned jargon - [ ] The partner narrative makes the interface contract (APIs, data, SLAs, ownership) explicit - [ ] Each requested narrative ends on a distinct, audience-specific call to action - [ ] Confidential or speculative items flagged in inputs are excluded from the partner version ## Notes - The most common failure is the executive narrative sounding like a watered-down engineer narrative — if a paragraph could go in either, it belongs in neither; rewrite it around a decision - When only one audience is requested, still run Step 1 internally — the Technical Core is what keeps a single narrative honest - For architecture review decks, the engineer narrative maps to the design doc body and the executive narrative maps to the summary slide — build both even when only one is asked for, and note this to the user - Analogies are powerful for executives but dangerous for engineers; never reuse an executive analogy in the engineer version --- ## How to use this skill This file is a Claude Code skill in [Anthropic's standard format](https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/skills) — markdown with YAML frontmatter at the top. **Installing in Claude Code:** - `~/.claude/skills//SKILL.md` — auto-loads in every session anywhere on your machine (recommended for skills you'll use across multiple projects) - `/.claude/skills//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:** 1. 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