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Overview

Generate executive-level summaries of your Vistaly workspace—what’s happening, what’s prioritized, and what’s changed. Perfect for stakeholder updates, leadership reviews, or keeping yourself oriented across a large workspace. This works because Vistaly structures your product work as a connected graph. AI can walk through that graph, cluster by priorities, and generate a summary that captures the strategic context.

Prerequisites

  • Vistaly MCP integration configured (setup guide)
  • An existing workspace with outcomes, opportunities, and solutions
  • Cards with statuses set (Now, Next, Later, Done)

The Prompt

Copy and paste this prompt to start the workflow:
<Goal>
Generate an executive-level summary of a Vistaly workspace using the Vistaly MCP service.
</Goal>

<Context>
## Workflow Purpose
Create a 20,000 foot view of a workspace—what's being worked on, what's coming up, and what's recently completed. Designed for stakeholder updates, leadership reviews, or personal orientation.

## Key Definitions
- **Outcomes**: Measurable results the product team is trying to achieve
- **Opportunities**: Customer pain-points, needs, or desires that connect to outcomes
- **Solutions**: Ideas or features being built to address opportunities
- **Experiments**: Tests validating assumptions before committing to solutions

## Role Definitions
- **facilitator**: Ask the user questions, guide the process, and wait for responses.
- **actor**: Perform an action (fetching data, processing information, generating output).
- **collaborator**: Work together with the user through back-and-forth dialogue.

## Status Meanings
- **Now**: Actively being worked on
- **Next**: Queued up, coming soon
- **Later**: On the backlog, not yet prioritized
- **Done**: Completed work

## Terminal Environment
- When evaluating the output formats, links should be formatted as markdown when working in a non-termial based enviroment. But when working in the terminal (ex: Claude Code), you must print the name of Card or insight, followed by the full URL.
</Context>

<Steps>
<Step number="1" title="Get Starting Card" role="facilitator">
Ask the user to share a Card ID, URL, or name for the root of the workspace they want summarized. This is typically an outcome or top-level strategic card.

Also ask if they have a previous summary to compare against (for delta reporting).
</Step>

<Step number="2" title="Recursive Tree Traversal" role="actor">
Traverse the tree **one level at a time**, deciding which branches to explore further. This prevents context overflow on large workspaces.

**1. Fetch Ancestors**
Use `getCardContext` with the provided card ID:
- Direction: `ancestors`
- Max levels: 10
- Include target card: true
- Exclude: insights, comments, descriptions

**2. Start Recursive Descent**
Begin at the root card, fetch `maxLevels: 1`, excluding insights/comments/descriptions.

**3. For Each Card Returned, Evaluate and Decide:**

| Card Type | Status | Action |
|-----------|--------|--------|
| **Objective, KPI, Outcome** | (any) | Always continue down |
| **Opportunity** | Now | Continue down + fetch insights for this card |
| **Opportunity** | Next | Continue down + fetch insights for this card |
| **Opportunity** | Done | Continue down (no insights) |
| **Opportunity** | Identified | Fetch 1 more level for context, then stop |
| **Opportunity** | Later | Fetch 1 more level for context, then stop |
| **Solution** | Now | Continue down + fetch insights |
| **Solution** | Next | Continue down + fetch insights |
| **Solution** | Done | Continue down (no insights) |
| **Assumption, Experiment** | (any) | Record but don't expand further |

**4. Recurse**
For each card that qualifies for "continue down", call `getCardContext` with `direction: descendants`, `maxLevels: 1`. Repeat step 3 until no more qualifying children.

**5. Build Mental Map**
As you traverse, build a complete picture of the workspace structure and note which cards have insights attached.
</Step>

<Step number="3" title="Cluster and Analyze" role="actor">
Group all cards by type and status:

**By Type:**
- **Strategic layer**: Outcomes, KPIs, Objectives
- **Discovery layer**: Opportunities
- **Execution layer**: Solutions, Assumptions, Experiments

**By Status:**
- **Now**: What's actively in focus
- **Next**: What's queued up
- **Later**: What's on the backlog
- **Done**: What's been completed

Count cards in each cluster and note the distribution.

Note: Insights for Now/Next items were already fetched during traversal (Step 2). Use those to extract key quotes that explain WHY things are prioritized.
</Step>

<Step number="4" title="Generate Summary" role="actor">
Create the workspace summary using OUTPUT_FORMAT step="4".

Include:
1. **Strategic Context** - Where this workspace sits in the broader strategy (from ancestors)
2. **Workspace Overview** - High-level composition and distribution
3. **Current Focus (Now)** - What's actively being worked on, with supporting evidence
4. **Coming Up (Next)** - What's queued up
5. **Recently Completed (Done)** - What's shipped
6. **Key Themes** - Patterns or clusters you observed
</Step>

<Step number="5" title="Delta Comparison (Optional)" role="collaborator">
If the user provided a previous summary:

1. Compare the current state to the previous summary
2. Identify:
   - New cards added since last summary
   - Cards that moved from Next to Now
   - Cards that moved to Done
   - Any significant shifts in priority or focus

3. Add a "What's Changed" section to the summary
</Step>
</Steps>

<Output_Formats>
<Output_Format step="4">
## Workspace Summary: {Outcome/Card Name}
**Generated**: {Today's Date}
**Scope**: [{Starting Card Name}]({link to card})

---

### Strategic Context
{1-2 sentences on where this workspace sits in the broader product/company strategy, based on ancestor cards}

---

### Overview

| Layer | Count | Now | Next | Later | Done |
|-------|-------|-----|------|-------|------|
| Opportunities | {X} | {X} | {X} | {X} | {X} |
| Solutions | {X} | {X} | {X} | {X} | {X} |
| Experiments | {X} | {X} | {X} | {X} | {X} |

**Total Cards**: {X}

---

### Current Focus (Now)

#### [{Opportunity Name}]({link})
{Brief description of what this opportunity is about}

**Why this matters:**
> "{Key quote from insight}"

**Active work:**
- [{Solution name}]({link}) - {status}
- [{Experiment name}]({link}) - {status}

#### [{Opportunity Name}]({link})
{Repeat for each "Now" opportunity}

---

### Coming Up (Next)
| Card | Type | Notes |
|------|------|-------|
| [{Name}]({link}) | Opportunity | {Brief context if available} |
| [{Name}]({link}) | Solution | Under: {parent opportunity} |

---

### Recently Completed (Done)
| Card | Type | Completed |
|------|------|-----------|
| [{Name}]({link}) | Solution | {Date if available} |
| [{Name}]({link}) | Experiment | {Outcome: passed/failed} |

---

### Key Themes
- **{Theme 1}**: {Brief observation about patterns in the workspace}
- **{Theme 2}**: {Another observation}

---

*Summary covers {X} cards across {Y} levels of hierarchy.*
</Output_Format>

<Output_Format step="5_delta">
### What's Changed
**Since**: {Date of previous summary}

**New Work:**
- [{Card name}]({link}) - {Type} added under {parent}

**Priority Shifts:**
- [{Card name}]({link}) moved from Next → Now

**Completed:**
- [{Card name}]({link}) - {Type} marked Done

**Removed/Archived:**
- {Card name} - no longer in workspace
</Output_Format>
</Output_Formats>

Tips for Success

Start at the Right Level

Choose a starting card that captures the scope you want to summarize. An outcome gives you a focused view; a higher-level objective gives you broader coverage.

Save Your Summaries

Keep your generated summaries so you can use them for delta comparisons. Copy the output to a doc or note for next time.

Adjust Depth as Needed

For very large workspaces, you may want to generate summaries for sub-sections rather than the entire tree.

Use for Stakeholder Updates

The output format is designed to be shareable. Copy it into Slack, email, or your team’s update channel.

When to Use This Recipe

  • Weekly/monthly leadership updates - Quick status on what’s in progress
  • Onboarding to a new workspace - Get oriented on priorities and structure
  • Pre-meeting prep - Understand the current state before a planning session
  • Tracking progress over time - Compare summaries to see how work is evolving