doc-restructure-live

Doc Restructure (Live)

A rambling doc buries its point. In Claude Cowork this skill opens the real document, restructures it around the reader's decision, tightens the prose, and hands back a clean copy with a summary of what changed — so the author sees the edit, not a lecture about editing.

What This Skill Produces

• The restructured document — reorganised (point-first), tightened, and consistently formatted, saved as a new Doc/file
• A change summary — what moved, what was cut, what was surfaced, and any content gaps the author must fill
• The one-line thesis — the single sentence the doc now leads with

Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:

• The doc — a Drive/Docs link or an uploaded file
• The reader and their decision — who reads this and what they must do after — structure follows the decision
• How aggressive — light tighten vs full reorganise; keep-voice vs rewrite

Framework: The Restructure Pass

1. BLUF — bottom line up front: the ask/answer in the first lines, not the last.
2. One idea per section — headings that state conclusions, not topics.
3. Cut the filler — throat-clearing, hedging, and restated context go.
4. Surface the buried — the real decision or risk hiding in paragraph nine moves up.
5. Make gaps explicit — mark [FILL IN] rather than inventing missing facts.

Execution (Cowork)

1. Open the doc — via the Google Drive/Docs connector, read the full document (headings, structure, content). Never edit from a paraphrase.
2. Diagnose — find the actual thesis, the reader's decision, the buried point, and the filler.
3. Restructure — reorder to point-first, rewrite headings as conclusions, tighten prose, keep the author's voice unless told to rewrite. Preserve every load-bearing fact; never fabricate to smooth a transition.
4. Write a new copy — create a new Doc/file (e.g. "[title] — restructured") with the result; leave the original untouched.
5. Emit the change summary artifact and list any [FILL IN] gaps for the author.

Guardrails: never overwrite the source — always a new copy; preserve facts and citations exactly; mark invented-needs as gaps, don't fill them; if the connector is unauthorised, produce the restructured text inline and say the copy couldn't be written.

Output Format

Thesis (new opening line)

> …

Change summary

| Change | From → To | Why |

|---|---|---|

Structure (new outline)

1. [conclusion-heading] …

Gaps for the author

• [FILL IN] — what's missing and where

Output

• New document: [link/name] — original left unchanged

Quality Checks

• [ ] The restructured doc leads with the point (BLUF), not background
• [ ] Every heading states a conclusion, not a topic
• [ ] No fact, number, or citation was altered or invented
• [ ] The original file is untouched; the result is a new copy
• [ ] Missing content is marked [FILL IN], not fabricated

Anti-Patterns

• Overwriting the original. Always a new copy.
• Inventing content to fill a thin section — mark the gap.
• Topic headings ("Background", "Details") instead of conclusions.
• Advice instead of an edit — this skill returns the rewritten doc.

Example Trigger Phrases

• "Clean up and restructure my draft in Drive."
• "Make this doc readable — point first — in Cowork."
• "Tighten this for exec review and give me a new copy."
• "Reorganise my proposal doc around what the reader has to decide."