Minto Pyramid Skill

minto-pyramid

An Agent Skill that makes your coding agent write the way consultants are taught to write: **answer first, then the reasons, then the evidence.**

Works in Claude Code, Claude Desktop, and anything else that reads Agent Skills. One file, no dependencies.

Install

git clone https://github.com/millwright-labs/minto-pyramid-skill ~/.claude/skills/minto-pyramid

Windows (PowerShell):

git clone https://github.com/millwright-labs/minto-pyramid-skill "$env:USERPROFILE\.claude\skills\minto-pyramid"

Or hand the repo URL to your agent and ask it to install the skill. Or download `SKILL.md` and drop it in `~/.claude/skills/minto-pyramid/SKILL.md`. Restart your session and it's live.

Use

**It asks before it rewrites you.** That's the design. When it loads on a draft you shared, it doesn't hand back a restructured version — it says one line about what it noticed and waits:

"This looks like a pyramid case — your recommendation lands in paragraph four. Want me to restructure it, conclusion first?"

Say yes and it goes. Say nothing and your draft stays yours. You know who the reader is, what's political, and what was already settled on a call; the agent doesn't. The exceptions are when you asked for it outright, or asked the agent to *write* the document — then it just does the work:

Use the minto-pyramid skill on this draft.

And when the document isn't a decision document at all — a timeline, a runbook, a thank-you note — it says so in a line and leaves it alone.

Five operations are defined inside: restructure, buried-lede test, reason audit, so-what pass, email version. Ask for one by name, or hand over a draft and let it start with the restructure.

What it actually does

The default order for a model is narrative: background, then findings, then the point — because that's the order most prose is written in. It buries the one line your reader needed. This skill inverts the order, enforces Minto's grouping