WRITER at Work May 2026

Overview: What you'll build

Welcome! This cheat sheet guides you through creating the two playbooks we demonstrated in our May WRITER at Work webinar.

By following this guide, you'll create automated workflows that eliminate the gap between a great meeting and your team taking action, and synthesize your daily context into a usable briefing. You'll build:

• Meeting to Action playbook: Automates the process of turning meeting notes into action items by pulling a Google Calendar transcript, analyzing it, and drafting a Slack update.

• Daily Briefing playbook: Acts as your personal Chief of Staff by synthesizing context from back-to-back meetings and Slack channels into a structured end-of-day summary.

Understanding the building blocks

Before you start building, let's clarify how skills and playbooks work together.

WRITER Agent is an intelligent interface that turns complexity into scale with repeatable, data-driven playbooks connected to the systems where work happens, empowering business leaders to drive consistent, high-quality work across teams.

Skills are packaged expertise that teach WRITER Agent how to handle specialized tasks consistently and reliably. Think of them as specialized toolkits—like a formatting skill that applies your brand template, or a messaging skill that ensures product positioning stays consistent.

Skills = Tools in your toolbox (technical capabilities - HOW)

Learn all about skills here →

Playbooks are reusable workflows that automate your most common and complex tasks, saving you time and ensuring consistency. They orchestrate the steps, while skills provide expert-level execution for specific tasks.

Playbooks = Assembly instructions (business processes - WHAT)

Learn all about playbooks here →

How they work together

You create skills first to capture specialized knowledge, then embed them in playbooks to automate complete workflows. The playbook orchestrates your workflow, while skills provide the technical capabilities.

🔎 Note: Your organization will need to have set up the connector to your communications platform such as Slack or Microsoft teams before you can use these playbooks. Learn more here.

Part 1: Creating skills first

You'll create two skills that the playbooks reference. Skills should be created before building your playbooks because they provide the specialized capabilities your playbooks will use.

How to create a skill

1. Navigate to Manage WRITER Agent > Skills

2. Select New skill > Build a skill in chat

3. Give your skill a name and describe what it should accomplish

4. Select Create and insert prompt to launch a WRITER Agent session

5. WRITER Agent will build your skill in a live working session

6. Once complete, select to add the skill to your skills library

Skill 1: Slack update formatter

This skill structures meeting notes into a consistent, easy-to-read Slack update format. If your organization uses another communication platform, like Microsoft Teams, just replace "Slack" below with the name of the tools you use.

When to use this skill: Embed it in playbooks that generate team updates, meeting readouts, or action item summaries for Slack.

Create this skill using this prompt:

Create a skill named "Slack update formatter" that structures meeting notes into a consistent Slack update format.
The skill should:
- Format the update with these sections: Key Decisions, Action Items (with owners), and Next Steps.
- Apply consistent formatting suitable for Slack (e.g., bolding, bullet points).
- Ensure the tone is professional yet conversational.

Customize this skill for your team:

Before submitting the prompt to create the skill, answer these questions and tailor the prompt to your needs:

• What specific sections or headers does your team expect in a Slack or Teams update?

• Do you have a preferred tone (e.g., highly formal, casual, bullet-heavy)?

• Are there specific emojis or formatting conventions your team uses for action items?

• Who is the primary audience for these updates?

Skill 2: Daily Briefing Skill

This skill synthesizes meeting transcripts and Slack messages to extract priorities, progress, blockers, and to-dos, structuring them in a consistent format. If your organization uses another communication platform, like Microsoft Teams, just replace "Slack" below with the name of the tools you use.

When to use this skill: Embed it in playbooks that create end-of-day summaries, weekly wrap-ups, or project status reports.

Create this skill using this prompt:

Create a skill named "Daily Briefing Skill" that synthesizes meeting transcripts and Slack messages.
The skill should:
- Extract priorities, progress towards major projects, blockers, and to-dos.
- Structure the information in a consistent, scannable format.
- Highlight any urgent items that need immediate attention.

Customize this skill for your team:

Before submitting the prompt to create the skill, answer these questions and tailor the prompt to your needs:

• What specific categories of information are most important for your daily wrap-up (e.g., blockers, wins, metrics)?

• Do you need the briefing to highlight specific projects or initiatives?

• How detailed should the summary be (high-level overview vs. granular details)?

• Are there specific Slack or Teams channels or meeting types that should always be prioritized in the synthesis?

Part 2: Building the Meeting to Action playbook

This playbook bridges the gap between a meeting ending and an aligned team update going out. It automatically pulls the transcript from a completed Google Calendar event, analyzes it for key decisions and action items, and drafts a Slack message for your review.

How to build the Meeting to Action playbook

1. Navigate to Playbooks > +New playbook and paste the prompt template below with your customizations

2. From the Triggers panel configure the event-based trigger to look at your calendar for when a specific event ends (e.g., "Marketing Production Key Project Meeting")

3. Run the playbook to test and make adjustments as you see fit

Meeting to Action prompt template

I need a playbook that triggers when a specific Google Calendar event ends.
1. Pull the transcript directly from the Google Calendar item.
2. Analyze the transcript to find key points, decisions made, and action items assigned.
3. Apply the /Slack-update-formatter skill to draft a Slack message based on the analysis.
4. Present the drafted message for my review before posting it to Slack.

Customize this playbook for your team:

Before building the playbook, consider these questions to tailor it to your workflow:

• Which specific calendar events should trigger this automation? (e.g., all meetings, specific keywords in the title)

• Which Slack or Teams channel should receive the update? (e.g., a dedicated project channel, a general team channel, or a direct message)

• Do you need to pull in additional context automatically, such as a linked document or a project management ticket?

💡 Pro tip: You can work back and forth with WRITER in the session like an executive assistant to add nuance, reference documents, or pull in notes before sending the final update.

Part 3: Building the Daily Briefing playbook

This playbook acts as your personal Chief of Staff, synthesizing context from back-to-back meetings and Slack channels into a structured end-of-day summary so you can log off feeling prepared for the next day.

How to build the Daily Briefing playbook

1. Navigate to Playbooks > +New playbook and paste the prompt template below with your customizations

2. From the Triggers panel configure the trigger to run at the end of your workday (e.g., 4:30 PM).

3. Test the playbook and make any needed adjustments

Daily Briefing prompt template

I need a playbook that runs on a scheduled trigger at the end of my workday.
1. Pull transcripts from my day's meetings using Google Calendar.
2. Gather information from my specified priority Slack channels.
3. Apply the /Daily Briefing Skill to synthesize the context into a structured format.
4. Deliver the synthesized briefing into my designated Slack channel.

Customize this playbook for your team:

Before building the playbook, consider these questions to tailor it to your workflow:

• What time of day is most effective for your scheduled trigger?

• Which specific Slack or Teams channels contain the most critical updates for your daily synthesis?

• Do you want the briefing delivered to a private channel, a direct message, or a team channel?

• Should the playbook also check other systems (like your email or project management tool) for additional context?

💡 Pro tip: Narrow down the playbook to only look at the most important Slack or Teams channels you need to be kept up to date with to reduce noise.

Best practices

• Build skills first: Always create your skills before building the playbooks that rely on them.

• Test with sample data: Run your playbooks with synthetic or sample data before relying on them for critical workflows.

• Refine with talk-to-text: Use talk-to-text to quickly add context to your automated drafts before sending them out.

• Use the / menu: Reference your skills directly in your playbook steps using the /    menu.

Next steps

Ready to get started?

• Navigate to Manage WRITER Agent > Skills to create your first skill

• Follow the skill prompts in Part 1 to build all three skills

• Once your skills are ready, go to Playbooks > New playbook

• Copy the prompt template for either playbook

• Test with real data and refine as needed

• Share with your team once you've validated the results

Need more help?

• Ask WRITER Agent directly: "How do I adjust this playbook for better results?"

• Review the Complete Playbooks Guide

• Check the Skills Documentation

• Learn about Connectors

Remember: Start with skills to capture your team's expertise, then embed them in playbooks to automate complete workflows. This combination helps you turn complexity into