---
name: summarize-ticket
description: >-
  Turn ONE support ticket or conversation thread into a five-section handoff
  brief — Customer Context, Issue, Resolution Steps Taken, Current Status,
  Recommended Next Action. Use this whenever someone is picking up, handing off,
  or sizing up a single ticket and needs the state condensed: "write a handoff
  note for #4471", "TL;DR this thread", "catch me up on this case", "where does
  this stand before I escalate", "brief the next agent on this one". Fire it even
  when the word "summarize" never appears — the trigger is the handoff/catch-up
  intent on one ticket, not the keyword. Do NOT use it to draft a reply to the
  customer, to triage or rank a batch of tickets, or to report on ticket volume
  or team metrics — those are different jobs.
---

# Summarize Ticket

Condense one support ticket into a structured handoff brief so the next person —
a colleague, a tier-2 agent, a manager — can absorb the whole situation in under
a minute without reading the raw thread.

The reader is busy and inheriting context cold. Your brief is the receipt of
where things stand. Lead with what they need to act, not with narration.

## When this applies

Use this when the request is about getting *one* ticket's state across a handoff:
inheriting a thread, catching someone up, or deciding whether to escalate. The
giveaway is a single ticket and a reader who wasn't in the loop.

It does **not** apply to:
- Drafting the customer-facing reply (that's a response, not a handoff brief).
- Triaging or ranking a queue of tickets (that's batch prioritization).
- Reporting on volume, SLAs, or team metrics (that's analytics).

If you're unsure which side of the line a request falls on, ask whether the
output is *for the customer* or *for whoever picks up the ticket next* — only the
latter is this skill.

## The five sections

Always produce exactly these five, in this order, as `##` headings. They map to
the questions the next person asks in sequence: who is this, what's wrong, what
have we already done, where are we now, what do I do next.

```
## Customer Context
Who the customer is and what matters about them for THIS issue — name/id, plan or
tier, relevant history. Skip anything that doesn't bear on the ticket.

## Issue
The problem in one or two plain sentences, from the customer's point of view.
What they expected, what happened instead.

## Resolution Steps Taken
What has already been tried, in order, with the outcome of each. Past tense.
If nothing has been tried yet, say so plainly — that is itself the signal.

## Current Status
Where the ticket stands right now: open/waiting/blocked, and on whom. One line.

## Recommended Next Action
The single most useful next step for whoever picks this up, and why. Concrete and
owned, not "investigate further".
```

## Writing guidance

- **Be specific over complete.** A handoff that lists every detail is as useless
  as one that lists none. Include what changes the next person's decision; cut the
  rest.
- **Past tense means it happened.** "Resolution Steps Taken" is a record of real
  actions and their results, not a plan. Plans belong in "Recommended Next Action".
- **Name the gap honestly.** If the customer's sentiment is hot, if a step failed,
  if no one has responded in three days — that belongs in the brief. The next
  person inherits the gap whether or not you wrote it down.
- **One ticket, one brief.** If handed several tickets, this skill isn't the right
  tool — that's triage.

See `reference/summary-template.md` for the bare skeleton to fill, and
`reference/example-summary.md` for a worked example plus a tricky edge case
(a ticket where nothing has been tried yet).
