Document summary and action items
Turns business documents into a concise audience-specific summary, a cited action register, and a separate list of dates and commitments. Use for board papers, project material, policies, proposals, reports, meeting notes, and document review; keywords include summary, action items, deadlines, commitments, and key dates.
Published Aug 21, 2026 · Updated Aug 26, 2026
Requirements
Define the preferred summary audience and maximum length. Define the required action-register columns and status vocabulary.
Skill document
The full SKILL.md your agent reads and follows.
Document summary and action items
Purpose
Convert one or more business documents into a decision-ready summary and structured follow-up material. Preserve the difference between what a source states, what it implies, and what remains unresolved.
Scope
Cover the document's purpose, decisions, arguments, figures, commitments, dependencies, owners, and dates. Include only actions supported by the source or explicitly labelled as proposed.
Excluded: Legal advice, factual research beyond the supplied corpus, and execution of any action.
Data basis
- Source documents in scope, including headings, paragraphs, tables, footnotes, and metadata.
- Optional audience, length, and action-format inputs.
Result
Produce a concise summary, an action-items sheet with source citations, and a key-dates document. Keep source facts distinct from interpretation and recommendations.
Quality criteria
- Every material claim in the summary has a document and location citation.
- Every action row states the action, owner, due date, status, and evidence or says not stated.
- Dates, amounts, names, and percentages match the source exactly.
- Conflicts between documents are shown rather than silently reconciled.
- The summary meets the requested audience and length without omitting material caveats.
Instructions
Use the source's own terminology. Treat a task as assigned only when an owner is named; otherwise mark the owner unassigned. Treat a date as a commitment only when the source frames it as a deadline, milestone, renewal, or meeting. Cite the smallest useful location, such as heading, page, table, or row. Put questions and assumptions in the open-points section, not in the action register.
Adapt before use
- Define the preferred summary audience and maximum length.
- Define the required action-register columns and status vocabulary.
- Add the company's owner names or team mapping if generic role names are insufficient.
- Define whether proposed actions may be included alongside explicit commitments.
- Define the preferred date format and citation style for the action register.
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