Staged Pipeline with Validation Gates
Split a fragile multi-step job into stages with contracts, reconciliation gates, checkpoints, and safe resume, so failures stop early.
Before & after
Same prompt, same agent — the only difference is the skill.
Sales pipelines are essential for forecasting and execution. To set up one that works for you, I should ask about your sales cycle length, deal stages, and what metrics matter most. Do you sell to consumers or enterprises? What's your typical sales process—demo, negotiation, contract? How many deals are you typically juggling? I'd suggest thinking about your funnel stages and tracking conversion rates at each. What CRM are you using, or do you need help choosing one?
SALES PIPELINE STRUCTURE & MANAGEMENT DEAL STAGES (6 total, customize per your process) STAGE 1: PROSPECT (Probability 10%) Deal entered → Inbound lead or cold outreach qualified Actions → Qualify fit (business size, budget, use case) Avg time → 2-5 days Example → Signed demo request STAGE 2: DISCOVERY (Probability 25%) Deal entered → Initial call or demo scheduled Actions → Understand pain points, map to product Avg time → 1-2 weeks Example → Scheduled call completed, next meeting set STAGE 3: PROPOSAL (Probability 50%) Deal entered → Quote/proposal sent Actions → Follow up, address objections, negotiate terms Avg time → 1-3 weeks Example → Waiting on internal approval from client STAGE 4: NEGOTIATION (Probability 75%) Deal entered → Contract terms discussed Actions → Legal review, final pricing confirmation Avg time → 1-2 weeks Example → Final terms agreed, awaiting signature STAGE 5: CLOSED WON (Probability 100%) Deal entered → Contract signed, payment received Actions → Onboarding kickoff, handoff to CS Avg time → Transaction complete Example → Customer live on platform STAGE 6: CLOSED LOST (Probability 0%) Deal entered → Deal no longer viable Actions → Document reason, attempt win-back Reason tracking → Budget, competition, timing, fit KEY METRICS TO TRACK Total pipeline value → Target 3x-4x quarterly revenue goal Stage conversion rate → Stage 1→2: 60%, 2→3: 50%, 3→4: 70%, 4→5: 80% Avg deal size → Actual vs. target Days per stage → Benchmark against historical Velocity → Deals closing per week (track momentum) WEEKLY REVIEW CHECKLIST Pipeline total → Enough deals at each stage? At-risk deals → Any stalled beyond avg stage time? Big wins coming → Next 30 days closing forecast Activity → Calls booked, proposals sent (leading indicators)
About this skill
When a multi-step job quietly produces wrong results, the problem is usually a stage nobody checks. This skill restructures the job into stages with explicit contracts and gates, so a failure stops where it started instead of corrupting everything downstream.
What it does
- Defines each stage's input, output, and side effects, keeping side effects late
- Adds reconciliation gates (in = out + rejected) that catch silent row loss
- Adds schema, invariant, drift, and input-completeness checks, verified independently
- Makes runs resumable with atomic checkpoints and idempotent loads
- Reports failures with stage, gate, expected vs actual, and a masked sample
What you get
A stage-by-stage design table with gates and idempotency, a run policy, and findings in the existing job if you shared code.
Best for
Engineers and analysts running imports, ETL, migrations, batch conversions, or multi-step agent jobs.
SKILL.md preview
---
name: staged-pipeline-gates
description: Restructure a multi-step job (data import, ETL, batch file conversion, migration, content generation, multi-step agent task) into explicit stages with input/output contracts, validation gates between them, reconciliation counts, checkpoint files, and safe resume - so a failure stops at the stage that caused it instead of corrupting everything downstream. Use when the user says "this import silently produces wrong data", "break this into stages", "add validation between steps", "make this resumable", "it failed halfway and I don't know where", "rows go missing somewhere", or "turn this script into a pipeline".
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