shift-brief

---
name: shift-brief
description: Turns tonight's bookings, menu changes and staffing into a five minute briefing script your duty manager reads out before doors, plus a six line written version pinned where the late starter will see it. Use when the same mistakes keep happening in service and nobody told the team beforehand.
---

# The five minutes before doors that stops half the mistakes

You give me tonight's booking sheet, whatever is off the menu, any change to a dish, and who is working which station. You get back a script your duty manager reads out in five minutes flat, in the order that matters, with the allergen item and the safety item in it every single time. You also get the same brief cut down to six lines for the board, so the person who starts at seven is not the only one who never heard it.

## What it does

1. **Fix the time, the length and the spot, and then never move them.** Pick one time that sits after the prep is done and before the first booking, and write it on the rota as a paid part of the shift, because it is one. Five minutes, standing up, in a place where nobody has to shout: the pass, the end of the bar, the corner of the room away from the door. The brief happens on a Tuesday with eighteen covers exactly as it happens on a Saturday with a hundred and forty, and that is the whole point of it. A briefing that only happens when the manager feels worried is a briefing the team learns to dread, and one that gets skipped on the quiet nights teaches everyone it is optional. If the kitchen and the floor genuinely cannot stand in one room, run two briefs three minutes apart off the same script, and say at the top of each one what the other room has just been told.

2. **Collect four things before anyone gathers, and refuse to open the brief without them.** The booking sheet with the shape of the night on it, not just the total. The off list, meaning everything that has run out or is not going on tonight. The change list, meaning any dish whose recipe, garnish, supplier or portion has moved since yesterday. The staffing line, meaning who is on which station, who is new, and who is covering a break for whom. If one of the four is missing, get it in the two minutes before you start rather than briefing around the hole, because a brief that says "I think we might be short on the sea bass" trains people to treat the whole thing as guesswork. Write the four onto one sheet of paper. That sheet is the brief.

3. **Open with the shape of the night, in numbers, before anything else.** Total covers, then the sittings, then the tables of six and above with their times, then the first and last booking, then anything with a deadline attached: a table with theatre tickets, a christening in the function room at two, a delivery arriving at six. People can hold four or five numbers. They cannot hold a paragraph. Say the numbers, then say the one sentence that follows from them, for example "eighty-two covers, two sittings, the big one is twelve at seven thirty, so the pass gets tight between seven fifteen and eight and we clear the ten-tops early". That sentence is what the team will actually carry into service, and it is worth more than the rest of the brief put together.

4. **Read the off list and the change list out loud, and have one person read them back.** Read every item, and for each one say what the answer is when a guest asks, not just that it is off. "No sea bass. If they ask, the alternative is the hake, same price, and it is on the specials board." Then pick someone different each night and ask them to repeat the off list back. This takes twenty seconds and it is the only part of the brief you can test on the spot. A list that was read at people and a list that has been read back are not the same list, and the difference shows up an hour later as a dish sold that does not exist.

5. **Do the allergen item every single brief, even when nothing has changed.** Name any dish whose ingredients have moved, name the allergen that moved with it, and name the person on shift who holds the allergen information and can be asked. The Food Standards Agency requires that "Food businesses must make sure that staff receive training on allergens", and for loose food it is direct: "If you provide non-prepacked foods, you must supply allergen information for every item that contains any of the 14 allergens." The same guidance sets the answer for the nights when the kitchen is under pressure: "If you can't avoid cross-contamination in food preparation, you should inform customers that you can't provide an allergen-free dish." Say that sentence out loud in the brief on any night when a station is doubled up, so that nobody has to invent it at the table. On a night with no change at all, the item is one line: "no allergen changes today, the folder is in the same place, ask Chef." That line still gets said, because the habit is the control.

6. **Name one safety thing that is different today, and one only.** Not a lecture, one specific hazard with the action attached: the ice machine is leaking so there is a mat down and a cone, the fryer is being emptied at ten so the back corridor is out, the delivery at six comes through the front because the yard gate is stuck. The Health and Safety Executive's catering pages list the hazards worth spending your one item on as "Slips and trips, knives, manual handling, skin disease", and on slips it says plainly that "Slips and trips remain the single most common cause of major injury in UK workplaces", naming spills from food and cooking among the main causes. One item, said every day, gets acted on. Six items, said once a month, get nodded at.

7. **Give every person one sentence of their own, by name.** Station or section, who they are covering, and who they go to when something goes wrong. New starters get their own line and the name of the person shadowing them, out loud, so the rest of the team knows who is carrying them tonight. Acas warns against overloading a new worker: "Avoid giving too much information on the first day. This could be overwhelming." So a new starter's line in the brief is a single job, not a tour of the building. This is the part managers skip when they are running late, and it is the part that decides whether a mistake at eight o'clock gets caught or gets served.

8. **Ask three questions and actually stop talking for the answer.** What has changed since yesterday that I have not said. What are we short of. What is going to go wrong tonight. Count to five after each one. The silence feels long and it is where the useful information lives, because the commis who knows the dishwasher has been tripping the breaker will not volunteer it into a monologue. Anthropic's own internal communications skill builds its team updates around the same three-part shape, "3P updates (Progress, Plans, Problems)", and the third P is the one that pays for the meeting. Write down anything raised that you cannot solve in ten seconds, and say when you will come back to it.

9. **Cut the brief to six lines and put it where the late starter will look.** Covers and the pinch point. The off list. The change and the allergen line. The safety item. Who is where. The one thing raised that is still open. Six lines, on the same board, in the same order, dated. Acas's guidance on talking to staff about performance makes the general point that applies here too: "It's important to keep a written record of what is discussed." The written version is not a record for its own sake, it is for the three people who did not hear the spoken one: the late starter, the agency cover, and the manager who takes over at nine.

## Then it checks

1. The brief has all four inputs on the sheet before it starts: the booking shape, the off list, the change list, and the staffing line, with none of them written as "about" or "roughly".
2. The off list was read back by a named person, and that person is not the same one who read it back yesterday.
3. An allergen line was said, and it names either a specific dish and allergen that changed, or states that nothing changed and names who holds the allergen information tonight.
4. Exactly one safety item was named, with the action attached to it, and it is specific to today rather than a general reminder.
5. Every person on the shift was named once with a station and an escalation point, and every new starter was named with the person shadowing them.
6. The six line written brief exists, is dated, sits where someone arriving late will pass it, and its last line is either an open item with a name and a time against it or the word "nothing open".

Any check fails: name it, redo that step once. Failed twice: say what is wrong and stop.

## Rules
- Public information only.
- Never invent a fact, a number or a quote.
- Anything sent in someone's name says whose name it is.
- Never put an allergen fact into the brief that has not been confirmed against the kitchen's own allergen information. A wrong allergen statement said with authority to twelve people at once is far more dangerous than no statement, because every one of them will repeat it at a table without checking.
- Never use the brief to discipline an individual or to raise last night's mistake with the person who made it. A conversation about one person's performance belongs in a one to one, in private, and a team that has watched someone be corrected in front of everyone will stop answering the three questions in step 8 within a week.
- Never let the brief run past five minutes by adding announcements, notices or a pep talk. The five minutes survive because they are short; the first brief that takes fifteen is the reason the next one gets skipped.
- This output is a working document prepared for the owner's HR adviser, food safety adviser or environmental health officer to check before it is used. It is a communication routine, not a food safety management system, and it does not replace your allergen records, your HACCP documentation or your risk assessments.

## Built from
- Food Standards Agency, "Allergen guidance for food businesses", https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/allergen-guidance-for-food-businesses/allergen-guidance-for-food-businesses, page updated 17 July 2026, read 14 September 2026: the duty to train staff on allergens, the duty to give allergen information on every non-prepacked item, and the instruction to tell customers when cross-contamination cannot be avoided, which together set the fixed allergen item in step 5.
- Health and Safety Executive, "Slips and trips in catering kitchens", https://www.hse.gov.uk/catering/slips.htm, updated 5 August 2025, read 14 September 2026: the finding that slips and trips are the single most common cause of major injury in UK workplaces and that spills from food and cooking are among the main causes, which is why step 6 spends its one safety item on something specific and physical rather than a general reminder.
- Health and Safety Executive, "Catering and hospitality", https://www.hse.gov.uk/catering/index.htm, updated 19 November 2024, read 14 September 2026: the four hazards worth briefing on in this industry, which set the shortlist a duty manager picks today's item from.
- Acas, "Planning an induction programme", https://www.acas.org.uk/inductions/planning-an-induction-programme, last updated 30 June 2026, read 14 September 2026: the warning against overwhelming a new worker with information, which is why a new starter's line in step 7 is one job and one name rather than the whole brief repeated.
- Acas, "Performance management", https://www.acas.org.uk/archive/performance-management, last updated 23 June 2026, read 14 September 2026: the instruction to keep a written record of what is discussed, which is the basis for the six line board version in step 9.
- Anthropic, "internal-comms" skill in the `anthropics/skills` repository, https://raw.githubusercontent.com/anthropics/skills/main/skills/internal-comms/SKILL.md, read 14 September 2026: the Progress, Plans, Problems shape that step 8's three questions are cut down from.

# shift-brief

## You are given
Tonight's inputs from one UK hospitality venue, in whatever state they arrive: the booking sheet as a print, a screenshot or an export; a scribbled off list from the kitchen; a note of any dish whose recipe, garnish, supplier or portion has changed; the rota page showing who is on which station, who is new and who covers whose break; the venue's own allergen information as a folder scan, a matrix or a spreadsheet; and the safety item the duty manager has chosen for today. You may also be given yesterday's board brief and the read-back log.

## Produce
Write into an `output/` folder next to the inputs. Use today's date in every filename.

1. `brief-sheet-<YYYY-MM-DD>.md` - one printable A4 page a duty manager reads from, with headed blocks in exactly this order: `The shape of the night`, `The off list`, `The change list`, `The allergen line`, `The safety item`, `Who is where`, `Three questions`. Every figure in it comes from the files below. Any block with nothing behind it is left empty and listed in `gaps.md`.
2. `covers.csv` with these columns in this order: `booking_time`, `party_size`, `table`, `sitting`, `deadline_note`, `source_file`. Sorted by booking time. Plus a final row labelled `TOTAL` carrying total covers, the number of sittings, the count of parties of six and above, the first booking time and the last booking time.
3. `off-and-change-list.csv` with columns: `line_type`, `dish`, `what_changed`, `allergen_affected`, `allergen_source_document`, `confirmed_against_allergen_information`, `guest_answer_as_supplied`, `source_file`. `line_type` is exactly `off` or `change`. `confirmed_against_allergen_information` is `yes` or `no`, and every `no` row is listed in `gaps.md`.
4. `stations.csv` with columns: `name`, `station_or_section`, `start_time`, `finish_time`, `covering_break_for`, `escalation_point`, `new_starter`, `shadowed_by`, `source_file`. One row per person on the shift. `new_starter` is `yes` or `no`.
5. `board-brief-<YYYY-MM-DD>.txt` - exactly six lines, dated, in this order and no other: covers and the pinch point; the off list; the change and the allergen line; the safety item; who is where; the one open item. The sixth line is either an open item with a name and a time against it or the single word `nothing open`.
6. `readback-log.csv` with columns: `date`, `off_list_read_back_by`, `same_person_as_yesterday`, `items_on_the_off_list`, `items_repeated_correctly`. Appended to, never overwritten.
7. `open-items.csv` with columns: `date`, `raised_by`, `item`, `owner_name`, `come_back_by`, `closed_on`.
8. `gaps.md` - a numbered list of: any of the four inputs missing at the time the sheet was built; every figure written as about, roughly, around or approximately in a source file; every allergen cell not confirmed against the venue's own allergen information; every person on the rota with no escalation point; every new starter with no named person shadowing them; and any board brief that does not have exactly six lines.

## Rules
- Codex records only what is in the supplied inputs. Never invent a cover count, a booking time, a dish, a station or a name.
- Never write an allergen fact that is not confirmed against the venue's own supplied allergen information. An unconfirmed allergen cell is left empty, marked `no` in the confirmation column and listed in `gaps.md`. Never carry an allergen fact over from yesterday's brief.
- Never write a number as about, roughly or around. If a source file says roughly eighty, the cell carries the source wording in `gaps.md` and the brief block stays empty.
- Never name an individual's mistake, performance, lateness or conduct anywhere in the brief, the board version or the open items. A person appears only with a station, a break cover and an escalation point.
- Exactly one safety item, and it is the one the duty manager supplied. Never choose one, never add a second and never write a general reminder in place of a specific hazard with an action attached.
- The board brief is exactly six lines. Never add a seventh for an announcement, a notice or a message to the team.
- Every figure and every dish name must trace to a supplied input file named in the row.
- Use British English, £ and DD Month YYYY dates. No em dashes.
- Every file ends with this line: this is a working document prepared for the owner's HR adviser, food safety adviser or environmental health officer to check before it is used. It is a communication routine, not a food safety management system, and it replaces no allergen record, HACCP documentation or risk assessment.

## Return
The absolute path of each file written, the row count of each CSV, total covers with the number of sittings and the count of parties of six and above, the number of off lines and change lines with how many were confirmed against the allergen information and how many were not, the number of people on the shift and how many have no escalation point, the six lines of the board brief printed in full, and the `gaps.md` item count. Say which of the four inputs were present and which were missing.