From Vague Request to Structured Contract Workstream

A practical Claude skill and Codex skill for project intake, scoping, and next-step planning

Problem

Imagine receiving this request:

We signed an LOI to acquire ABC Corporation. Please start reviewing the top 100 customer contracts. We expect to close quickly and will send a data-room link.

It can be tempting to get access to the repository ASAP and start reviewing contracts. However, it’s usually better to scope out what the request is actually asking for and any available context to help inform execution.

That is what the intake-contract-workstream skill is designed for — helping clarify and understand an inbound request for contracts analysis in sufficient depth to effectively begin planning and execution.

Where intake fits in the broader contract workstream framework

Almost every post-executed enterprise contract workstream, big or small, can be framed as the same underlying six-part process:

1. Trigger — an event occurs that requires contracts work

2. Define criteria — determine what you’re looking for and why

3. Find — apply the criteria to locate the target population of contracts

4. Analyze — go deeper on the population: validate the initial search results, incorporate nuances, exceptions, and additional criteria, and perform a comprehensive assessment

5. Decide — translate the analysis into recommendations, remediation paths, answers to stakeholder questions and other internal deliverables

6. Remediate — take action through counterparty outreach, internal communication, negotiation, and workflow tracking

For a full breakdown of the six stages, see the article: The Post-Executed Contract Intelligence Framework.

This article focuses on the first phase: Trigger / Intake.

One call-out re terminology: the trigger is the event or request (usually outside of our control). Intake is the process of turning that event or request into enough structured context to begin planning the work.

What the skill does

The intake-contract-workstream skill acts as a structured thought partner.

Give it an email, notes, or other background, and it helps produce a structured intake brief that:

• Classifies the trigger or request

• Identifies the decision or deliverable that contract work needs to support.

• Translates business context into relevant scope: expected contract populations and data points.

• Distinguishes known facts from missing inputs, assumptions, and unknowns.

• Identifies stakeholders, approvals, and potential blockers.

• Generates recommended next steps - including what can begin now versus what should wait and scope-change risks.

It supports six common request categories (archetypes):

1. M&A (Corporate Transactions)

2. Regulatory and policy remediation

3. Backlog / legacy repository review

4. Business-as-usual stakeholder questions

5. Commercial Opportunity / Optimization

6. Incident response

Two ways to use the skill

Option 1: Provide the underlying context directly

If your organization’s policies and approved environment permit it, you can provide the triggering request or background directly to the model.

Whether that’s appropriate depends on the information involved, the system you’re using, and your organization’s confidentiality, privilege, security, and data-handling requirements.

Option 2: Use the skill to generate an intake checklist

Where providing the underlying context directly is not appropriate, the skill can instead generate a structured checklist of the information that would be helpful to collect.

You can then work through that checklist separately and return only the information that is appropriate to provide.

This is less direct, but it can still help structure an incomplete request and identify the inputs most likely to affect scope or execution.

Limitations / What it does not do

The skill does not establish the final scope of the work, perform contract analysis, make decisions, or perform remediation actions.

Its job is to create a better starting point for those later steps while preserving the role of human judgment in defining scope, analyzing contracts, making decisions, and taking action.

It may identify expected / provisional contract populations or possible criteria, but those should not be treated as approved search or review criteria without appropriate review.

Paid subscriber resources

Paid subscribers receive:

• The complete intake-contract-workstream skill bundle for each of Claude and Codex.

• Installation instructions for project-scoped and personal use.

• A worked M&A example (hypothetical).

• Future updates to the intake framework and request category modules.