Mohit Aggarwal Outline Before Prose Skill
Documents get rewritten in review because the structure was wrong — and structure feedback arrived after two days of prose polishing. The outline-first discipline moves that feedback to hour one: a skeleton where every section is a one-line claim (not a topic), a header naming the reader and the decision, and a five-minute outline review with the key stakeholder before any paragraphs exist. Prose expands an approved outline in one pass; prose written first defends itself against restructuring forever.
What This Skill Produces
- The header — reader, the decision/action the doc exists to produce, and the length budget
- The claim outline — each section as the sentence it will argue, in order, with the evidence it will carry noted
- The outline review step — who sees the skeleton, what question they're asked, before drafting starts
- The expansion rules — how the approved outline becomes prose without growing new sections in the dark
Required Inputs
Ask for these if not provided:
- The doc's job — what the reader should do after reading (approve, decide, follow, stop worrying); docs without a job become tours
- The reader, specifically — their context level and their likely objection; the outline argues to someone
- The material — what's known, what evidence exists, the conclusion if one is already honest — outlines organize material; they don't survive its absence
- The reviewer — whose restructuring would hurt most later; that's who reviews the outline now
Framework: The Skeleton Rules
- Sections are claims, not topics: "Performance" is a topic; "The latency regression comes from the new retry logic" is a claim — a claim outline can be disagreed with at outline stage, which is the entire point. If a section's claim can't be written, the thinking isn't done, and prose would have hidden that for two more days.
- The header is the contract: reader + the decision + length budget, written first. Every outline decision gets tested against it — a section that doesn't move the named reader toward the named decision is cut now, at one line of sunk cost.
- Order is the argument: claims sequenced so each earns the next — context → the problem's cost → the proposal → the evidence → the risks conceded → the ask. Reordering at outline stage is drag-and-drop; at prose stage it's surgery with transitions.
- The outline review asks one question: "if the sections argue these claims with this evidence, does the doc work for you?" — five minutes, the reviewer who'd otherwise restructure in review. Their edits land on one page, and the expensive rewrite dies unborn. (This is the executive-summary discipline applied one stage earlier.)
- Expansion is faithful or renegotiated: drafting fills sections without spawning new ones; material that demands a new section goes back through the header test (and the reviewer, if it changes the shape). The outline travels at the doc's top during drafting — becoming the TOC, or the exec summary's skeleton, at ship time.
Output Format
Outline: [doc] — for [reader] to [decision] · budget: [length]
The Skeleton
- [Section claim, as a sentence] — evidence: [what carries it]
- … [Ordered as the argument · cuts noted: "considered and dropped: X (fails the header test)"]
The Review Step
[Who · the one question · scheduled before drafting]
Expansion Rules
[Fill-don't-spawn · the renegotiation trigger · the outline's afterlife as TOC/summary]
Quality Checks
- Every section is a disagreeable claim, not a topic word
- The header names reader, decision, and budget — and every section passed its test
- Order makes each claim set up the next
- The outline reviewer is the person whose late restructuring would cost most
- Drafting rules prevent silent new sections
Anti-Patterns
- Do not outline in topics — "Background / Analysis / Conclusion" postpones every real decision to prose
- Do not draft while outlining — pretty sentences at skeleton stage are premature attachment
- Do not skip the review because the outline "is obvious" — obvious outlines take five minutes to confirm and two days to rewrite
- Do not defend outline structure at prose review — that conversation was available cheaper earlier; have it earlier
- Do not outline without the material — a skeleton of unknowns is a research plan wearing a doc's clothes, and should be named as one