CEO Brief — Chief of Staff Skill

Synthesizes all active department activity into a CEO-level briefing. The operator should never have to hunt across department Brains to know what's happening — this skill does that for them.

COMPANY PROFILE

Company:   {{company_name}}  |  {{company_type}}
Operator:  {{operator_name}} |  {{operator_email}}
Brain:     {brain_root}/
Dashboard: {brain_root}/mission-control/DASHBOARD.md

Loaded from ~/.cerebro/profile.yaml at runtime (populated by first-run wizard). Never prompt for this information.

BRAIN CHECK — Always Run First

Load before generating any brief:

1. {brain_root}/mission-control/DASHBOARD.md — current department status table and red flags
2. Last ops session from {brain_root}/mission-control/sessions/ — any cross-dept decisions or context
3. {brain_root}/mission-control/state/circuit-breakers.json — orchestration routing health (only surface if open/half-open — see "Routing Health" below)

THE 4 STAGES

Route based on what the operator asked for:

Default (no qualifier): run Full Brief.

BRIEF OUTPUT FORMAT

Always use this exact structure — concise, scannable, no fluff:

## CEO Brief — [Day, Date]

### 🟢 What Moved
[Dept]: [1 line — what actually happened, concrete outcome]

### 🔴 What's Stuck / Red Flags
[Dept]: [1 line — what's blocked and why]

### ⚡ Decisions Needed From {{operator_name}}
1. [Decision] — [Dept] — aging X days
2. [Decision] — [Dept] — deadline context

### 📅 Upcoming Deadlines (next 14 days)
- [Date] | [item] | [Dept] | [Status]

### 🔌 Routing Health (orchestration stack)
- [tier / task-class] | [state: open / half-open] | [hours since open / probe due]

### 💡 One Insight
[Single most important observation — pattern, risk, or opportunity across departments]

Keep each section to 3 bullets max. If there's nothing to report in a section, omit it. Give signal, not noise.

Routing Health is OFF by default. Include it ONLY when the circuit-breaker state file at {brain_root}/mission-control/state/circuit-breakers.json has one or more entries in state open or half-open. If every breaker is closed (or the file is absent), omit the section entirely.

KEY RULES

1. Read the actual session files, not just DASHBOARD.md. The dashboard is a snapshot; sessions have the real detail. Always read the last 1–2 session entries from each dept that has been active in the last 7 days.
2. Surface aging decisions. Any decision that's been open for 7+ days without resolution is a red flag. Name the decision, name the department, name how many days it's been open.
3. Never generate a brief without reading the Brain first. A brief written from memory is stale by definition. Always load fresh context.
4. One Insight is required. Don't skip it. This is the Chief of Staff's job — connecting dots the operator might not see because they're heads-down in a single department.
5. If a department has had no sessions in 7+ days, flag it. Dormant departments aren't moving. Check {brain_root}/mission-control/DASHBOARD.md for dept posture context before recommending activation of any dept marked as deprioritized.
6. Check circuit-breaker state on every full brief. If any breaker is open or half-open, the orchestrator is diverting traffic — surface it in "Routing Health" with tier, task-class, state, and hours-since-opened.

DEPARTMENT PATHS — Read These for Full Briefs

{operator_departments} — configured in brain.config.yml at install time

# Example structure:
#   {dept}/brain/sessions/           ← session logs
#   {dept}/brain/decisions/decisions.md   ← dept decision log
#   mission-control/sessions/           ← ops/cross-dept sessions
#   mission-control/decisions/          ← company-wide decisions

All paths relative to {brain_root} (populated by first-run wizard at install time).

RENDER TARGETS

ceo-brief is the engine for cross-department briefing. The synthesis step (load Brain, score aging, extract insight) is target-agnostic. The render step varies by surface:

Rule: the Brain → synthesis step is a single code path. Adding a render target means extending the render step only, not re-reading the Brain.

AFTER THE BRIEF

Always offer:

"Want to drill into any department, or should I surface the aging decisions list?"

If the operator says yes to aging decisions, run Stage 2 (Decisions Only) inline.

Scope Contract

References (auto-wikilinks)

• [[DASHBOARD]]
• [[awareness]]
• [[decisions]]
• [[stage1_full_brief]]
• [[stage2_decisions]]
• [[stage3_dept_drilldown]]
• [[stage4_deadlines]]