By name: triage description: "Inbound request triage skill — the front door of the product work-shaping funnel. Classifies a raw, unsorted request into a routing bucket (product shaping, engineering, data, needs-info, or not-actionable) and produces a fast triage decision artifact. Single-pass; inline-only; stand-alone — recommends a next step but never invokes another agent or skill."
Triage Skill
Classify a raw, unsorted inbound request and produce a fast triage decision that says what kind of work it is and where it should go next. This is the front door of the product work-shaping funnel — a sister step to intake, typically orchestrated between the non-technical stakeholder (who brings the request) and the technical product manager (who applies the routing judgment).
Always announce at start: "I'm using the triage skill to classify and route this request."
Audience: product and engineering — anyone fielding inbound requests. It is product-aligned (a shaping/routing judgment, not implementation), but either side may run it.
What Triage Is (and Is Not)
- Is: a fast, mostly single-pass classification that points the request at its destination.
- Is not: a shaping session. Triage does NOT gather detailed requirements, refine, or estimate — that is
scope's job once a request is routed into the funnel. Keep it quick.
Behavior — Fast, Single-Pass
Read the request and emit the triage decision immediately. Do not run an iterative refinement loop.
The only time to ask a question is when the request is too empty to classify at all — and even then, the correct output is usually the Needs more info classification with the specific questions listed, rather than a back-and-forth. Ask a clarifying question only if a single answer would clearly flip the classification.
Routing Buckets
Classify into exactly one:
| Bucket | Meaning | Recommended next step (a pointer, not an action) |
|---|---|---|
| Product shaping | A real feature/change request that needs requirements work | → run the scope skill (the funnel's intake step) |
| Engineering | Already well-specified, or a trivial fix/bug that does not need product shaping | → hand to the engineer agent |
| Data / analysis | An analysis, report, or data-wrangling job | → hand to the data agent |
| Needs more info | Cannot be classified yet | → bounce back to the requester with the specific questions listed |
| Not actionable | Out of scope, duplicate, or not a real request | → reject / defer, with a one-line reason |
When the bucket is Product shaping, the pointer is to scope because triage and scope are sister steps within the same funnel. The other buckets point outward (engineer/data agents) or back (requester).
The Triage Artifact
Bounded and short — a fast routing decision, not a document. Render it inline.
| Section | Cap | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Request Summary | 1–3 sentences | Restate the inbound request in neutral terms |
| Classification | 1 line | The bucket (Product shaping / Engineering / Data / Needs more info / Not actionable) |
| Rationale | 1–3 bullets | Why this bucket |
| Recommended Next Step | 1 line | The concrete pointer (e.g. "→ run scope", "→ hand to engineer agent", "→ hand to data agent") |
| Signals & Unknowns | bullets | What is known vs. missing; for Needs more info, the specific questions to ask back |
| Urgency / Notes | optional, 1–2 lines | Time-sensitivity or caveats worth flagging |
Self-Check (Quick)
Before presenting, scan for these and correct:
- Multi-classification — the request actually contains several distinct asks that belong in different buckets. Say so, and triage each ask (or recommend splitting them at the source). Do not force one bucket.
- Doing scope's job — the artifact has drifted into requirements detail or estimation. Trim back to classification + pointer.
- Hedged classification — no clear bucket chosen. Pick one, or use Needs more info with explicit questions. Do not present an ambiguous routing.
Persistence
Inline-only. Triage is a fast, throwaway routing decision — render the artifact in the conversation and stop. Do not write a file. If the request routes into the product funnel, the durable record begins at scope; triage's job is done the moment it points.
Next Step
The artifact's Recommended Next Step is itself the pointer — a human carries the request to the named destination. Triage never invokes another agent or skill; it only recommends.
Key Principles
- Fast and single-pass — classify and point, don't shape
- Exactly one bucket per ask (split multi-ask requests)
- Pointer, not action — recommend a destination; a human carries it across
- Product shaping routes to
scope; everything else points outward or back - Inline-only — no file; the funnel's durable record starts at
scope - Stand-alone — never invoke another agent or skill