How to use the Internal Change Communications Planner agent skill

What is an agent skill, and what does internal-comms make the agent do?

An agent skill is a folder containing a SKILL.md file and any supporting files, which an AI agent reads to learn a specific way of working. This one is designed for a Head of People Ops, BizOps lead or Internal Communications owner who must announce an internal change within days.

Once the skill is active, the agent produces a comms package for one internal change event. The package has four parts: a touchpoint calendar, a primary announcement structured around Kotter's 8 steps, an employee FAQ segmented by audience, and manager cascade talking points. The skill also checks whether the tone matches the size of the change.

• Touchpoint calendar: a sequence of about seven touchpoints keyed to days before and after the effective date, each with channel, owner, ADKAR stage and key message.
• Primary announcement: each Kotter step labelled inline, from Establish Urgency through Anchor in Culture.
• Audience-segmented FAQ and manager talking points.
• Tone validation: for example, it rejects celebratory framing on a disruptive change and 'minor update' framing on a high-magnitude one.

Install the internal-comms skill

Option 1: download the ZIP from the skill's page on this directory and unzip it into your personal skills folder, ~/.claude/skills/, or into a project's .claude/skills/ folder so that only that project uses it.

Option 2: in the Claude apps, open Settings, go to Capabilities, and upload the skill under Skills.

The skill needs an agent that supports SKILL.md skills, for example Claude Code, and Python 3 if you want to run the bundled scripts. The scripts use only the Python standard library, so there is nothing extra to install.

Trigger the skill with a natural request

The skill activates when your request matches its description. The description names these phrases: 'all-hands announcement', 'change comms', 'rollout comms', 're-org announcement', 'manager talking points' and 'layoff comms'. You can also describe the situation in your own words, as long as it is an internal change aimed at employees rather than customers.

Give the agent the facts it needs: what is changing, who is affected, the effective date, the magnitude of the change and the channels you have available. The skill's brief template lists these fields as a JSON skeleton.

• Draft manager talking points for the Platform and Infrastructure merger, effective in three weeks.
• Write change comms for rolling out our new expense tool to all staff.
• I need layoff comms for a 30% reduction, with an FAQ and a sequenced calendar.

Run the bundled scripts on a JSON brief

The skill's assets folder contains comms_brief_template.md, a fill-out template that ends in a JSON skeleton. Save your completed brief as comms_brief.json and pass it to the scripts. Each script reads a slightly different subset of fields, so the template JSON is the union of all three.

The scripts accept --input and --output {markdown,json}. The builder script also accepts --profile, which can be tech-startup, scaleup, enterprise, public-company or non-profit.

Try the built-in example first

If you want to see the output before using real data, run the template filler with --sample. It prints a tool-rollout example for an engineering audience. The skill's quick example runs from the skill's business-operations/skills/internal-comms directory.

Safety notes: scripts, network and what the skill will not do

The skill runs scripts, so read them before running them on sensitive data. It does not use the network. The source states that its scripts are deterministic and stdlib-only.

The skill is not a legal reviewer. It assumes the policy decision is already made, so final legal or compliance wording of a new HR policy still needs review. For layoffs and sensitive personnel matters, the skill's own guidance is that generated text can sound scripted or misjudge tone, so HR and legal should review it.

• Do not use it for customer-facing launches or press releases; the skill says those belong to a separate marketing skill.
• Do not treat generated layoff text as final without HR and legal review.
• Check the eight anti-patterns in references/announcement_anti_patterns.md before sending anything.

Tips for better output

Be specific about magnitude. The validators depend on whether the change is low, medium, high or disruptive, so a vague brief produces a vague tone check.

List the channels you really have. The calendar builder flags channel mismatches, such as a Slack-only plan for a layoff, which the skill treats as an anti-pattern needing a synchronous channel.

Set the profile to match your company. A public-company profile uses more conservative tone around material-event awareness, while tech-startup is more direct.