sgharlow Document Summarization and Key Point Extraction
Read a long document and return a decision-ready digest tuned to the reader's role. The summary must be faithful: every claim in it traces to the document, with section or page references where the format allows.
Steps
- Confirm the target file and the reader's context — role, why they are reading it, and what they will do with it (present, decide, share). If context is missing, ask these three questions first; a summary without them is generic and half as useful.
- Read the full document. For very long documents, read in passes: structure first (headings, tables, executive sections), then the sections that bear on the reader's stated purpose.
- Produce, in order:
- Executive summary — 3–5 sentences: what the document is, its central claim, why it matters to this reader.
- Key points — 5–10 bullets, each with a section/page reference.
- Implications for your role — 2–4 bullets connecting findings to the reader's stated purpose.
- Numbers that matter — any figures, dates, or thresholds a decision would turn on.
- What the document does NOT cover — gaps the reader might wrongly assume are addressed.
- Verify: re-scan the document for any section not represented in the key points; either add it or state why it was omitted. Never present an inference as the document's claim — label reader-specific interpretation as "Implication", not "Finding".
Constraints
- Do not summarize a document you could not fully read (unsupported format, truncated file) — say exactly what was unreadable instead of summarizing the fragment silently.
- Quote sparingly; a digest that is 40% quotation is not a digest.
Full walkthrough, examples, and variations: recipes/Recipe-004-Document-Summarization.md.