---
title: Brief Best Practices skill
slug: agent-platform/docs/brief-best-practices-skill
docTags: 
createdAt: 2026-10-06T00:00:00.000Z
---

The **Brief Best Practices** skill is an org skill in the Optimizely Opal Skills Directory that defines your ideal brief structure, covering target audience, goals, related links, and financial impact, and applies it to every campaign and content brief to ensure consistency and the right inputs.

It applies to everyone in your organization. An administrator installs and configures it once.

## Skill details

- **Shortcut** – `/brief-best-practices`
- **Type** – Org skill
- **Setup** – Required

## What the skill does

- Gives every campaign, content, event, launch, and creative brief the same 16-section structure.
- Writes goals as a verb, metric, target, deadline, and segment, with a baseline and a guardrail.
- Shows financial impact as one-line funnel math labeled Estimate, Committed, or Actual, with a range.
- Reviews briefs by grading each section Complete, Thin, or Missing and suggesting three fixes with rewrites. Never invents a number, name, or link.

## Before you begin

- You must have the **Manage Instructions** permission to install this skill. If you do not, click **Request** in the Skills Directory to ask an administrator to install it.
- Have your answers and files ready. Opal asks for them during setup.

## Information Opal asks for

Opal asks for the following during setup. You can skip optional items.

- **What You Do and Which Briefs Your Team Writes** (Required) – Your scope and brief types.
- **How You Measure Goals and Financial Impact** (Required) – Metric names, currency, deal value, stage rates, sales cycle length, and the spend threshold that turns on cost rules. Without stage rates and sales cycle, impact is marked "Not yet sized".
- **Your Brief Template or a Brief You Were Proud Of** (Optional) – Opal copies the structure and level of detail, never the content or numbers.
- **Audiences and Segments You Target** (Optional) – Your standard audiences.
- **Where Related Work Lives** (Optional) – Links to plans, budgets, assets, and past results. Missing links are marked "Link needed".
- **Anything Specific to Your Team** (Optional) – House rules. Defaults are one accountable owner and one to two pages.

## Install the skill

1. Go to **Directory > Skills**.
2. Find **Brief Best Practices** and click **Install**.
3. In the **Setup required** dialog, click **Set up in chat**.
4. Answer Opal's questions and upload any files it asks for.
5. Confirm the details when Opal asks.

For details about browsing, installing, updating, and uninstalling skills, see [Skills Directory overview](docId\:jw_PeWvKOXocy3ihL5h9w).

## Use the skill

After setup, enter `/brief-best-practices` in Opal Chat to run the skill on demand. Opal also applies it automatically when your request matches its **When to use** conditions. Try prompts like the following:

- *Write a webinar brief for our Q3 launch.*
- *Review this campaign brief and tell me whether it's ready.*
- *Complete this brief from the CRM record.*

## Things to know

- Opal won't write a brief until it knows what the work is, who it's for, and the primary goal.
- Deal values and stage rates go stale. Review them regularly and edit the skill when they change.

## Update the skill

When Optimizely publishes a new version, **Update** displays on the skill's card in the Skills Directory. Opal keeps the information you provided during setup and asks only for anything the new version adds. See [Update a skill](docId\:jw_PeWvKOXocy3ihL5h9w).

## Related skills

- [Messaging Framework skill](docId\:jLx3YaVtgQEJ5dru0xUMP)
- [Experiment Best Practices skill](docId:3VoS8D_4j27E0CvzcQQvW)

:::hint{type="info"}
**Note**

If you use Opti ID, administrators can turn off generative AI in the Opti ID Admin Center. See [Turn generative AI off across Optimizely applications](docId\:X5U0kKD2azV5cIdNqwGNj).
:::