Turn a long email chain into a decision summary and action tracker
Reads a long thread and returns what was decided, what's still open, and a tracker of actions with owners and dates.
The prompt
Turn this long email chain into a decision summary and an action tracker.
Email chain: [PASTE THE FULL THREAD, oldest to newest if possible]
Who the summary is for: [e.g. "me", "my manager who wasn't copied", "the whole thread"]
Steps:
1. Read the thread in date order. Where people changed their positions, track the latest one.
2. Separate what was decided from what was only suggested or discussed.
3. Identify every action someone agreed to, or was asked to do.
Return:
1. In one paragraph - what this thread is about and where it has landed.
2. Decisions made - each with who made or approved it and the date. Quote the confirming line.
3. Still undecided - open questions, disagreements, and who needs to decide.
4. Action tracker - a table I can paste into Excel, Planner, or a project tool:
| # | Action | Owner | Due date | Status | Source (sender + date) |
5. Risks or confusion - contradictions, unclear owners, or actions with no date.
6. Suggested reply - a short email to the thread confirming the decisions and actions, asking people to correct anything wrong.
Rules:
- Don't treat silence as agreement; mark such items as [UNCONFIRMED].
- Use "no owner" or "no date" rather than assigning one yourself.
- Use only what's in the thread.
Before pasting, remove anything you're not allowed to share with an AI tool (customer personal data, passwords, confidential material).
Highlighted [brackets] are blanks to replace with your own details.
Fill in the blanks and use this promptMore Email & Workplace Communication prompts
What to fill in
- PASTE THE FULL THREAD, oldest to newest if possible
- e.g. "me", "my manager who wasn't copied", "the whole thread"
- UNCONFIRMED
How this prompt is built
This prompt follows the RTF structure (Role, Task, Format). RTF tells the model who to be, what to do and what shape the answer should take. It is the quickest structure that still gives noticeably better results than a bare request.
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