# Extract Reporting Obligations From Consent Decree > Guides construction of a comprehensive consent decree obligation register and companion risk memo by extracting reporting and compliance deadlines, identifying sequencing dependencies, and flagging tracker errors and ambiguities. - Skill: `finchipaiorg/extract-reporting-obligations-from-consent-decree` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add finchipaiorg/extract-reporting-obligations-from-consent-decree` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/finchipaiorg/extract-reporting-obligations-from-consent-decree/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Coding & Dev Tools - Author: FinchipAIOrg (https://skillmd.com/u/finchipaiorg) - Updated: 2026-09-22 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/finchipaiorg/extract-reporting-obligations-from-consent-decree --- # Skill: Extract Reporting Obligations from Consent Decree — Build Compliance Calendar and Obligation Register ## 1. Subject-matter triage - Treat the main decree, all appendices, schedules, exhibits, and incorporated attachments as potentially operative unless the text clearly excludes them. - Separate obligations by track: reporting, monitoring, certification, remediation, project milestones, notice-and-cure, dispute-resolution steps, and payment/penalty events. - If an internal tracker or preliminary calendar is supplied, reconcile it against the decree text before drafting the final register. ## 2. Failure modes the skill is correcting - Excerpts only the main body and misses appendices or incorporated schedules that supply the real deadlines, protocols, and milestones. - Lists obligations without identifying trigger events, dependencies, or conditions precedent, causing missed sequencing. - Accepts a tracker at face value instead of testing dates, offsets, trigger language, and obligation labels against the source text. - Fails to flag ambiguous, undefined, or internally inconsistent terms that create compliance risk. - Collapses distinct obligations into one bucket, obscuring independent reporting or certification duties. - Produces a risk memo with descriptions only, but no concrete recommendations tied to timing and responsibility. ## 3. Legal frameworks / domain conventions that apply - Environmental consent decrees are court-enforceable instruments; deadlines, reporting duties, and milestone commitments can carry stipulated penalties and contempt risk. - Incorporated appendices, exhibits, and schedules may be legally operative and can refine or supersede general body text where the decree says so. - Reporting obligations often include periodic reports, certifications, notices of completion, milestone submissions, and proof-of-compliance attachments, each with its own trigger and due date. - Sequencing matters: a notice, approval, inspection, certification, or prerequisite deliverable may need to occur before a later milestone becomes due or compliant. - Excuse, extension, and dispute-resolution provisions are typically narrow and procedural; they should be treated as mandatory steps, not informal requests. - Where the decree identifies a governing regulatory standard, permit condition, or technical protocol, use that authority as the benchmark for the obligation and note it in the register. ## 4. Analytical scaffolds - Read the decree end-to-end, then read each appendix or attachment as if it were part of the operative order. - First enumerate every distinct obligation, party, trigger, and due date before analyzing dependencies or risks. - For each obligation, capture: obligation type, source location, responsible party, trigger, deadline, deliverable, frequency, prerequisite steps, and consequence for non-performance. - Preserve the distinction between absolute dates and relative deadlines tied to an event, approval, notice, or completion milestone. - Test each deadline against nearby provisions for cross-references, extensions, tolling, cure periods, and penalty accrual language. - Reconcile the source text against any tracker or draft calendar: identify mismatched dates, missing obligations, misread triggers, and duplicated entries. - For each ambiguity, state the competing interpretations, the compliance-safe reading, and whether clarification from the counterparty or court is advisable. - For each issue in the risk memo, pair the problem with its downstream consequence and a recommended next step. ## 5. Vertical / structural / temporal relationships - Track hierarchy: if an appendix, schedule, or exhibit contains more specific instructions than the body, treat the specific instruction as controlling to the extent the decree incorporates it. - Separate parallel compliance streams: remediation work, reporting work, and project work may run on different clocks and should not be merged. - Sequence dependencies: identify obligation chains where one filing, approval, certification, or milestone unlocks the next. - Temporal clustering: when several obligations share a trigger period, flag the cluster as a heightened operational risk even if each individual deadline is facially manageable. - Penalty logic: note where one missed event may cascade into later missed events or additional stipulated penalties. ## 6. Output structure conventions - Prepare the obligation register as a chronological table with one row per discrete obligation. - Use fields that operationalize compliance: ID, obligation, source citation, responsible party, trigger, due date, cadence, dependencies, deliverable, penalty or consequence, status, and notes. - Do not merge separate deadlines into a single row unless the decree clearly treats them as one composite obligation. - Prepare the risk memo as an issue-oriented advisory document with a clear severity scale defined once at the top and applied uniformly to each entry. - For each risk item, include: severity, obligation references, issue description, why it matters, and a recommended action with a responsible role and timing anchor. - Close the memo with a concise recommended-actions section that prioritizes immediate calendar fixes, clarification requests, and follow-up steps. - Name the deliverables exactly as instructed: `obligation-register.docx` and `compliance-risk-memo.docx`. - Before finishing, ensure the register exists as the primary deliverable and is complete, then produce the memo as the secondary deliverable.