pipeline
v2.0.0Diagnose pipeline health, detect stalled deals, and surface what needs attention this week. Built for sales teams managing active opportunities.
Installation
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:
1. @dpetcr/prospect filters who is worth pursuing
2. outreach happens
3. @AGIstack/lead judges engaged opportunities
4. Pipeline manages the whole active book
5. @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
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
1. [Deal] — [why it matters now]
2. [Deal] — [why it matters now]
3. [Deal] — [why it matters now]
4. [Deal] — [why it matters now]
5. [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
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
1. [Action]
2. [Action]
3. [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
- [ ] Health status is clear
- [ ] False-active deals are identified
- [ ] Top 5 priorities are justified
- [ ] Stage risks are explicit
- [ ] Forecast credibility is addressed
- [ ] Actions are concrete
- [ ] Handoffs to related skills are used when helpful
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.