Negotiation Pipeline Check

Negotiation Pipeline Check

You are a pipeline-hygiene auditor. Sweep a deal export for deals sitting in negotiation with no mechanical path to a signature — no paper started, no approver on a discount, no credible close date, no mutual close plan, no named signer. This never reads a call transcript; negotiation-closing audits the negotiation conversation for tactics and concessions, this skill only asks whether the forecast rows in negotiation stage have the structural pieces a deal needs to actually close.

Before you start

• If .agents/gtm-context.md (or .claude/gtm-context.md) exists, read it first and don't ask for anything it already answers.
• Run this end to end in one pass — don't stop to ask which stage label to match or what counts as a stale close date; apply the defaults in references/rubric.md, decide, and note the assumption once.
• If the in-scope filter returns zero negotiation-stage rows, say so plainly and stop rather than forcing a check onto rows that don't exist.

When to use this

• RevOps or a manager reviewing the negotiation-stage forecast for deals that are "verbally close" but have no paper, approver, or close-date discipline behind them.
• A rep or manager sanity-checking their own negotiation-stage deals before a forecast call.
• Spotting discount requests moving without an approver before they reach legal/finance.

Step 1: Choose an input source

CSV mode (default) — read the .csv file the user points at directly.

Connector mode — if this conversation has a tool that can list opportunities/deals, use it instead and treat the returned rows exactly like CSV rows. If both are available, ask the user which to use; otherwise proceed on whichever exists without asking.

There is no transcript mode in this skill.

Step 2: Column detection

Match headers case-insensitively, ignoring _/-/space differences. Accept the synonyms listed in references/rubric.md. If a column a check needs is absent, that check reports Unknown (column missing) for every row — state this once, up front, and never infer a missing column's value from another column.

Step 3: Filter to negotiation stage

Keep rows whose stage column fuzzy-matches "negotiation" (e.g. negotiation, negotiating, contract, legal review — see references/rubric.md for the exact match list). Report how many rows were in scope out of the export's total row count.

Step 4: Run the six checks

Score every in-scope row against the six checks in references/rubric.md. Each check returns Flagged, Clean, or Unknown. Every flagged deal must cite the column name and the actual cell value that triggered the flag (e.g. close_date = 2026-01-14, approver = (empty)) — a flag with no cited cell does not ship. Check 3 (discount without approval) computes the median discount across in-scope rows from the export itself; never use a hardcoded discount ceiling.

Run the reads-well-too check from references/rubric.md first if working against the sample data: it must return at least two deals fully Clean.

Step 5: Output

One markdown table, flagged deals first, most flags first:

Then two closing lines:

• N of M deals in negotiation flagged
• The single most common flag across the flagged deals.

Nothing else — no scores, no letter grades, no percentages invented from nothing.

Run this end to end in one pass. Don't stop to ask which stage label to match or what counts as a stale close date — apply the defaults in references/rubric.md, decide, and note the assumption once.

Sample data

assets/sample-pipeline-negotiation-pipeline-check.csv — a synthetic 10-row pipeline export mixing flagged and healthy negotiation-stage deals. Run the skill against it first:

claude "run negotiation-pipeline-check on skills/negotiation-pipeline-check/assets/sample-pipeline-negotiation-pipeline-check.csv"

Do not

• Don't blend the six checks into one score or letter grade — the output is a flag list with cited evidence, not a rating.
• Don't hardcode a discount ceiling — compute the median discount from the export itself, per check 3.
• Don't infer a missing column's value from another column; report Unknown and move on.

Related skills

• negotiation-closing audits the negotiation conversation itself (tactics, concessions); this skill sweeps the pipeline's negotiation-stage rows instead.
• won-pipeline-check picks up once a deal actually closes, checking the handoff data rather than the path to signature.

What this does not do

No CRM connection, no API calls, no telemetry, no data retention beyond the current session. It reads the file(s) you point it at (or what a connector already present in the conversation returns) and nothing else.