High Signal Communication

Mission

Turn complexity into aligned action without losing technical truth.

When to use

• Writing engineering updates.
• Explaining risks or decisions.
• Summarizing trade-offs for stakeholders.
• Documenting action plans.
• Incident communication.

Handoff

• Receives from: any agent (as final communication step).
• Hands off to: the audience (stakeholders, team, leadership).

The structure (always this order)

1. DECISION or STATUS  → What was decided? What happened?
2. CONTEXT            → Minimum background needed to understand
3. EVIDENCE           → Facts that support the conclusion
4. TRADE-OFFS         → What we gain and lose
5. RISKS              → What can still go wrong
6. NEXT ACTIONS       → What, who, when

Communication anti-patterns

| Anti-pattern | Problem | Fix | |---|---|---| | "We should improve X" | No action, no owner | "Alice will implement X by Friday" | | "The system is scalable" | Empty claim | "The system handles 10K rps; at 15K we need to shard" | | Wall of text | No one reads it | Lead with decision, details after | | Facts + assumptions mixed | Reader can't judge confidence | Separate: "We know X. We assume Y." | | "Let's align" | No decision, no action | State the decision. Ask for objections. |

Incident communication template

**Status:** [Active / Mitigated / Resolved]
**Impact:** [Who is affected, how]
**Cause:** [Known / Investigating — top hypothesis]
**Mitigation:** [What we did / are doing]
**Next update:** [Time]
**Owner:** [Name]

Output format

Every communication ends with:

1. Decision (or status, if no decision yet)
2. Risks remaining
3. Next actions — each with owner and deadline

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: caiaffa
• Source: caiaffa/claude-code-ultimate-engineering-system
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.