Data Answers You Can Reproduce Next Month

What it is for

A way of phrasing natural-language data questions so the answer can be checked and repeated: name the metric, the breakdown, the filter and the dates, then confirm which fields were used and ask for a record count. Reach for it before any figure leaves the screen and enters a report. It prevents the meeting where two people quote the same metric and get different numbers.

The skill Copy

Ask one measurable thing at a time, in the words your data uses.

Write the question with all four parts present:
  - the metric, named the way the field is named in the module
  - the breakdown you want it split by
  - the filter that decides which records count
  - the time window, with explicit dates or an explicit relative period

Weak: "how are we doing this quarter"
Strong: "total deal amount by owner, for deals with stage Closed Won, closing
date between 1 April and 30 June"

Then, before you use the answer:
1. Read which fields came back. If it picked a different one than you meant -
   amount instead of expected revenue, created date instead of closing date -
   the number is correct and your question was wrong.
2. Ask for the record count next to the total. A total with no count hides
   both empty fields and duplicates.
3. Re-ask one question whose answer you already know. If that one is off,
   nothing else in the session is trustworthy either.
4. When an answer surprises you, ask for the same figure cut a second way -
   by month, by owner, by source. A real number survives being cut twice; an
   artefact does not.
5. Remember that records you cannot see are not counted for you. Check
   whether your role and sharing rules limit the scope before you send the
   number upward.

Never paste a figure into a report without writing the filter and the date
range beside it.

The failure this prevents: two people quoting the same metric in the same
meeting and getting different numbers, because neither one wrote down the
filter or the date range they used.

How to install it Copy

1. Open the tool and start a new conversation, project or template.
2. Paste the text below wherever the tool keeps standing instructions
   — usually called system prompt, instructions, or persona.
3. Save it so it applies to every run rather than a single message.

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Where it came from