Pipeline
A pipeline's job is not to make you feel good about your forecast. Its job is to tell you the truth.
Pipeline is a truth-enforcing control skill for active sales opportunities.
Use this skill when you need to:
- identify which deals are truly advancing vs sitting idle
- detect stalled or fake-active opportunities
- enforce stage discipline
- surface the few deals that need attention this week
- improve forecast accuracy by cleaning pipeline pollution
- turn a messy deal list into a pipeline you can actually trust
This skill does NOT:
- find new targets (use
@dpetcr/prospect)
- qualify a single engaged contact from scratch (use
@AGIstack/lead)
- write or structure formal proposals (use
@dpetcr/proposal)
- redesign your full sales process from zero
Pipeline vs Lead
These skills handle different layers of the sales process.
| Pipeline | Lead |
|---|
| Scope | Many active opportunities | One engaged opportunity |
| Question | "What is the health of my whole deal flow?" | "Should I keep pursuing this person?" |
| Input | Deal list, stages, dates, next steps, values | One prospect, reply history, buying signals |
| Output | Health diagnosis, priorities, pipeline actions | Qualification score, next action |
| Focus | System truth and control | Single-opportunity judgment |
Typical flow:
@dpetcr/prospect filters who is worth pursuing- outreach happens
@AGIstack/lead judges engaged opportunities- Pipeline manages the whole active book
@dpetcr/proposal supports formal closing progression
Use Lead for one opportunity.
Use Pipeline for the full active system.
What This Skill Does
Pipeline helps:
- identify stalled deals
- detect stage pollution
- find unsupported forecast optimism
- surface which deals need action now
- spot weak next-step discipline
- reveal where the pipeline is unhealthy
- recommend clean-up actions that improve control
Pipeline is not a design lecture.
It is an operating view for active opportunities.
What to Provide
Useful input includes:
- deal or account name
- current stage
- owner
- last activity date
- next scheduled step
- expected close timing
- deal size or value
- blockers or risks
- notes from recent conversations
The more concrete the pipeline data, the more reliable the diagnosis.
Standard Output Format
PIPELINE HEALTH
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Status: [Healthy / Warning / Critical / Broken]
BREAKDOWN
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Hygiene: [Strong / Weak] — [one-line reason]
Stagnation: [Low / Medium / High] — [one-line reason]
Balance: [Healthy / Uneven] — [one-line reason]
Forecast Credibility: [High / Medium / Low] — [one-line reason]
TOP 5 TO ACT ON NOW
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
- [Deal] — [why it matters now]
- [Deal] — [why it matters now]
- [Deal] — [why it matters now]
- [Deal] — [why it matters now]
- [Deal] — [why it matters now]
STALLED / FALSE-ACTIVE DEALS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
- [Deal] — [days inactive] — [why it no longer looks truly active]
- [Deal] — [days inactive] — [why it no longer looks truly active]
STAGE RISKS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
- [Stage] is accumulating stalled deals
- [Deal] appears over-advanced for the evidence available
- [Deal] has no credible next step
- [Forecast] is inflated by weak late-stage deals
IMMEDIATE ACTIONS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
- [Action]
- [Action]
- [Action]
WORKS WELL WITH
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
@dpetcr/prospect for pre-contact filtering@AGIstack/lead for single-opportunity judgment@dpetcr/proposal for formal deal progression
If user provides a small pipeline, include deal-by-deal detail.
If user provides a large pipeline, summarize first, then expand only the top-risk and top-opportunity deals.
Core Truth Principles
- A deal without a real next step is weaker than it appears.
- A stage name means nothing without stage evidence.
- A stale deal is not active just because it still exists in CRM.
- Forecast quality comes from honesty, not optimism.
- Pipeline control is about truth, not comfort.
Heuristic Health Assessment
When user asks about overall pipeline health, assess these dimensions:
Hygiene
Look for:
- deals with no recent activity
- vague or missing next steps
- close dates that look arbitrary
- old deals still sitting in active stages
Stagnation
Look for:
- stages where deals enter but rarely exit
- deals aging without visible movement
- repeated follow-up with no real progression
- “still alive” deals that show no buying behavior
Balance
Look for:
- too much weight in early stages
- too many late-stage deals with weak evidence
- weak pipeline replenishment
- an unhealthy mix of deal age and stage position
Forecast Credibility
Look for:
- close dates unsupported by current behavior
- advanced-stage deals lacking stakeholder movement
- proposal/late-stage deals with no scheduled next step
- pipeline value that depends on fake-active deals
Use these dimensions as judgment aids, not fake precision.
Review Routes
Use these default routes:
Advance
- deal has momentum
- stage evidence is real
- next step is clear
Recover
- deal may still be viable
- momentum has weakened
- action is needed quickly
Watch
- deal is not dead, but not worth heavy effort this week
Downgrade
- stage is too optimistic for the evidence
- move deal back to a more honest stage
Close Out
- no credible momentum remains
- remove from active forecast and stop pretending
When to Use Pipeline
Use this skill when:
- you want to review the health of an active deal book
- you need to find stalled or fake-active deals
- you want to know what deserves attention this week
- you need a more honest forecast view
- you need to clean up stage discipline
Do not use this skill when:
- you are still selecting targets before contact (
@dpetcr/prospect)
- you are judging one engaged opportunity (
@AGIstack/lead)
- you need proposal help (
@dpetcr/proposal)
- you need broad sales-process consulting rather than pipeline control
Execution Protocol (for AI agents)
When user provides pipeline data, follow this sequence:
Step 1: Parse Pipeline
Extract:
- deal names
- stages
- owners
- last activity
- next steps
- values
- expected close timing
- blockers
Step 2: Detect False Activity
Identify deals that look active in name only:
- no recent activity
- no real next step
- late stage without supporting evidence
- close date based on hope rather than movement
Step 3: Assess Health
Review:
- Hygiene
- Stagnation
- Balance
- Forecast Credibility
Step 4: Surface Top 5
Pick the 5 deals that most deserve attention now:
- biggest upside with real recoverability
- biggest forecast risk
- biggest stage-discipline issue
- biggest next-step urgency
Step 5: Assign Route
For each key deal, recommend:
- Advance
- Recover
- Watch
- Downgrade
- Close Out
Step 6: Produce Actions
Return:
- overall pipeline status
- main risks
- top 5 priorities
- concrete actions for this week
Step 7: Handoff When Needed
If a deal needs one-opportunity judgment, suggest @AGIstack/lead.
If a deal is ready for formal closing progression, suggest @dpetcr/proposal.
If user is still filtering targets before contact, suggest @dpetcr/prospect.
Activation Rules (for AI agents)
Use this skill when the user asks about:
- pipeline health
- stalled deals
- forecast reliability
- stage discipline
- deal-book review
- what needs attention across many active opportunities
Do NOT use this skill when:
- the task is pre-contact filtering
- the task is single-lead qualification
- the task is proposal writing
- the task is a non-sales workflow unless explicitly reframed into active opportunity control
Ambiguous cases
If pipeline is mentioned but the user may mean a general workflow, ask:
"Are you asking about a sales opportunity pipeline, or a different kind of process?"
Proceed as Pipeline only if the context is active opportunities and stage control.
Quality Check Before Delivering
Boundaries
This skill supports active opportunity control for sales pipelines.
It does not replace:
- legal or compliance review
- finance approval logic
- CRM administration
- hiring, onboarding, or delivery workflow design
- ethical judgment about forecast reporting
Adapt outputs to your actual sales motion, stage definitions, and operating rules.