Take noisy input (commit messages, calendar, scratch notes) and write a concise weekly update that respects the reader's time. Three sections, no preamble, no sign-off boilerplate.
When to use
- User says "give me a weekly update" or pastes a commit log + asks for a summary
- Friday-EOW or Monday-morning post
- Engineering / cross-functional context (different from a marketing newsletter)
Do NOT trigger when the user is writing a long-form retrospective. This is the 200-word version.
Workflow
Bucket the input into three piles. Read everything once. Mentally label each item:
shipped(it's done and usable),in-flight(started, not yet usable),blocked(waiting on something or someone). Drop items that are neither — half-thoughts, abandoned attempts, vague ideation.Write the three sections. Order: Shipped → In flight → Blocked. Each is a bulleted list. Each bullet is one line. Lead with the outcome, not the activity:
- ✗ "Worked on the auth system"
- ✓ "Auth: device-flow CLI tokens now refresh on 401" The reader wants to know what changed for them, not what hours you put in.
Name names when work depends on people. "Blocked: waiting on Maya for the design review" is more actionable than "Blocked: pending review." Use first names only.
Numbers when you have them. "Cut p99 latency from 1.2s to 280ms" beats "improved latency." If you don't have a number, don't fake one.
Close with one line of next-week intent. Not a roadmap — one or two concrete things. "Next: ship the rate-limit fix; start the seo-worker rewrite."
Output shape
## Week of <Mon>–<Fri date>
**Shipped**
- <one-line outcome>
- <one-line outcome>
**In flight**
- <one-line outcome> (<expected ship>)
**Blocked**
- <one-line outcome> (<who/what>)
Next: <one or two things>
Definition of done
- 3 sections, each with at most 5 bullets
- No bullet longer than one line
- No throat-clearing intro ("This week we...")
- No closing platitude ("Great work team!")
- Total length: 150–250 words
Gotchas
- Don't list every commit. "Bumped pnpm-lock", "Fixed typo in README", "Renamed variable" don't belong. The reader doesn't care.
- "Shipped" means the user can use it. A PR merged to main but not deployed isn't shipped. Move it to in-flight.
- Resist the temptation to celebrate. No emoji, no "🎉", no exclamation points. The work is the celebration.
- One audience at a time. A status for your manager looks different from one for marketing. Ask which audience if it's not obvious.
- If the week was quiet, say so. "Quiet week — mostly carry-over from last week. See last week's update." A short honest summary beats padding.