Hand over a spreadsheet so it survives its author leaving — the README tab that decodes the sheet's logic, the update runbook with sources and cadence, the fragility warnings, and the walkthrough that transfers the judgment. Use when asked document this spreadsheet before I leave, hand over the model to the team, make this sheet survivable without me, or we inherited a workbook nobody understands. Produces the README tab content, the update runbook, the known-fragilities list, and the handover walkthrough agenda.
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Use spreadsheet-handover to produce README-tab content, an executable update runbook, a fragilities list, and a walkthrough agenda for [workbook, purpose, consumers, and update cadence], using [author availability and undocumented rules] for [named successor and spreadsheet fluency].
Required inputs
[workbook, purpose, consumers, and update cadence]
[author availability and undocumented rules]
[named successor and spreadsheet fluency]
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SKILL.md
name: spreadsheet-handoverdescription: "Hand over a spreadsheet so it survives its author leaving — the README tab that decodes the sheet's logic, the update runbook with sources and cadence, the fragility warnings, and the walkthrough that transfers the judgment. Use when asked document this spreadsheet before I leave, hand over the model to the team, make this sheet survivable without me, or we inherited a workbook nobody understands. Produces the README tab content, the update runbook, the known-fragilities list, and the handover walkthrough agenda."
Spreadsheet Handover Skill
Every team runs on a few sheets that live in one person's head — the model only Priya can update, the tracker with rules nobody wrote down. When that person leaves, the sheet becomes an artifact: used, feared, slowly wrong. The handover fixes it while the head is still available: a README tab (what this sheet does, how it flows, what the tabs are), an update runbook (sources, steps, cadence — executable by a stranger), the fragility confession (what breaks and how you'd know), and a walkthrough where the successor drives one real update while the author watches.
What This Skill Produces
The README tab — purpose, data flow, tab map, owner history — living in the workbook where successors will actually look
The update runbook — the recurring update as numbered steps: sources (with access notes), paste-points, checks, the it-worked signal
The fragility confession — the known landmines: the hardcodes, the order-sensitive steps, the "never sort tab 3" rules
The walkthrough plan — successor-drives-author-watches, on a real update cycle, gaps patched into the runbook live
Required Inputs
Ask for these if not provided:
The workbook and its job — what decisions it feeds, who consumes its outputs, the update rhythm
The author's time — still here for a month (full handover) vs. leaving Friday (triage: runbook + fragilities first, README from the successor's questions)
The successor(s) — named; a handover to "the team" is a handover to no one — and their sheet fluency (the runbook's assumed-knowledge level follows)
The undocumented rules — the author's habits that ARE the process ("I always eyeball row 12 against the invoice") — extracted by asking "what do you check before you trust it?"
Framework: The Handover Rules
The README lives in the sheet: first tab, named _README — purpose (two sentences), the data flow in one diagram-ish list (sources → tabs → outputs), the tab map (each tab's one-line job), and the owner line (who, since when, who before). External docs drift and get lost; the tab travels with the file.
The runbook is written to be executed, not read: numbered steps at do-this grain ("Export the CSV from [system] → paste values-only into _data A2 — values-only or the formats break"), each source with its access path, and the end-state check ("total in F2 should match the system dashboard ±rounding"). The test: a competent stranger completes the update without messaging anyone.
Fragilities get confessed, not fixed-in-passing: the handover documents the sheet as it is — the hardcoded override in June, the sort that breaks the lookups, the tab held together by hope. Fixing while documenting mixes two risky activities; the confession list becomes the successor's spreadsheet-audit agenda for later.
The walkthrough transfers the judgment: one real update cycle, successor's hands on the keyboard, author narrating only when asked — every hesitation is a runbook gap, patched immediately. The judgment checks ("does this number smell right?") get extracted here, because they never make it into text unprompted.
The sheet gets an owner, not a committee: the handover ends with the successor's name in the README's owner line and the update calendared under their name. Sheets owned by everyone are updated by no one until the quarter it mattered.