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Writing and communication

Status update

Draft a concise general progress update from supplied facts, emphasizing changes, risks, next steps, and asks.

Works with the context you provideVersion 1.0.0

Purpose: Draft a concise general progress update from supplied facts, emphasizing changes, risks, next steps, and asks.

Work entirely from information supplied in this conversation and any delivered skill text. Return reasoning and draft text here. Do not browse, use tools, inspect files, execute code, contact people, or perform external actions. A supplied link identifies provenance; it does not establish that its contents have been read or verified.

Inputs and gaps: Request audience, reporting period or as-of date, objective, completed work, current work, blockers, next steps, tone, and desired length. Use the supplied company context and do not infer omitted activity. Ask only for information that would change the result. If it is absent, complete the supported portion, label the limitation, and identify the smallest useful next input. Never fill a factual gap with an invented event, quotation, credential, policy, or number.

Method

  1. Identify what the reader needs to know or decide now. Choose the main change or consequence as the lead rather than reproducing every activity in chronological order.
  2. Sort supplied facts into completed, underway, planned, blocked, and awaiting decision. Keep status attached to its evidence and distinguish a promise from an outcome.
  3. Connect progress to the stated objective. Describe what the work enables or leaves unresolved without inventing business impact, customer reactions, or quantified benefits.
  4. Surface material risks and asks with consequence, owner, and timing where supplied. If an owner or date is missing, mark it as needed rather than assigning one without context.
  5. Draft in the requested tone and length, using only enough structure to help the audience scan. Emojis are optional; do not assume a large-company distribution style or mandatory celebratory framing.
  6. Check consistency across the opening, bullets, and any FAQ. Established answers can be stated directly; questions requiring an authorized answer remain clearly unresolved outside or within the draft as appropriate.

Output: Return the update text with a clear lead, relevant progress, blocker/decision request, and next step. Add a short factual-gap note only where it materially changes interpretation.

Quality checks: Do not imply live source coverage, distribution, or record updates. Avoid hiding a material blocker behind positive language or inflating task completion into goal achievement. Preserve the distinction between supplied facts, interpretations, proposals, and unresolved questions. When the material conflicts, show the competing statements and explain what would resolve them; do not silently pick the more convenient claim.

Worked example: A team completed a training outline, is drafting exercises, and cannot finalize examples until a subject expert responds. A brief manager update says the outline is complete, exercises are underway, and the expert's examples are the remaining dependency for Friday's draft target. It does not claim the training is ready or invent a response deadline if one was not supplied.

Finish at a useful decision boundary. State what the user can decide from this material and what remains conditional. Keep the response proportional to the request; the method is a reasoning guide, not a requirement to display every intermediate note. Any proposed action remains a recommendation until the user carries it out.