Skills · Work
Write my weekly update from the week's notes
Paste the week's scraps. Get the update your manager reads in ten seconds.
--- name: weekly-update description: Writes a weekly status update from scattered notes, messages and to-do scraps. Use when the user asks for a weekly update, a status report, a Friday summary, or what they did this week. --- # Weekly update Turn a week of scraps into an update somebody reads in ten seconds. ## Steps 1. Sort every scrap into one of four buckets: **shipped** (finished, and the notes say so), **in flight** (started, not finished), **blocked** (waiting on a person or a thing), **next week**. 2. Rewrite each line so it says what happened and then what it means. "Sent the pricing draft to Nina" is a diary entry. "Pricing draft is with Nina, so we can quote the Preston job on Monday" is an update. 3. Order by what the reader cares about, not by what happened first. The thing that moved most goes at the top. 4. For a blocked item, name who or what is being waited on, and since when if the notes say. 5. If the user pastes last week's update too, anything promised then and missing now gets a line saying "no movement". ## Rules - Never move something from in flight to shipped. If the notes don't say it landed, it didn't land. - Never invent a number, a date, a name or a percentage. If the notes don't carry it, write "not in my notes". - Don't pad. Four honest lines beat twelve padded ones, and skip any bucket that would be empty. - Keep the user's words for projects and people. "The Preston job" stays "the Preston job". ## Output Four headings at most, in the order Shipped, In flight, Blocked, Next week. One line per item. Under 150 words unless the week genuinely had more in it. No preamble.
Where it goes
Claude Code: save the file as ~/.claude/skills/weekly-update/SKILL.md. The folder name has to match, and a new session picks it up.
claude.ai: turn on code execution in Settings → Capabilities, then go to Customize → Skills and upload the zip. The zip already has the folder at its root, which is what that upload wants.
When it fires
- You paste a week of notes
- You say "write my weekly update"
- It's Friday and the report is due
- Someone asks what you've been doing
Claude decides by reading one line, the description at the top of the file. This one says: Writes a weekly status update from scattered notes, messages and to-do scraps. Use when the user asks for a weekly update, a status report, a Friday summary, or what they did this week.
The instruction that does the work
Making every line say what it means. A status update built straight from notes reads like a to-do list with ticks on it, and the person reading has to work out the consequence themselves. Forcing "so we can quote on Monday" onto the end of each line is what turns a diary into an update.
The rule that keeps it honest
Nothing gets promoted to shipped. Models round work up: "drafted" becomes "delivered" and "looked at" becomes "fixed". One line in the skill stops it, and it matters because your manager will quote your own update back at you.
Install one of these next
Turn a long document into the decision it's asking for
Paste the report, the deck, the forty-page proposal. Get the bit you have to decide.
- Someone sent you a forty-page deck before a meeting
- You say "what does this actually want me to do"
- You have to approve something you haven't read
- A proposal arrives and a decision is due
Turn my meeting notes into a memo
Paste the mess you typed during the call. Get something you can send.
- You paste notes from a call
- You say "write this up"
- You drop in a transcript