Context Brief Template

1. The situation

What's the task, and who or what is actually producing the output?

• Task:
• Who/what is producing it (a person, a team, an AI tool, some mix):
• Deadline or cadence (one-off, recurring, ongoing):

2. What's already known

The scattered knowledge that usually only lives in someone's head. Fill in whatever applies; leave the rest blank rather than padding it.

• Fact / spec (the concrete, checkable details):
• Tone / voice (how this should sound, and how it shouldn't):
• Precedent (a real past example that got this right):
• Real feedback (an actual customer/user reaction, not an assumption about one):

3. What's missing

If you removed this brief right now, what would the next person, or the next AI prompt, have to guess at?

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Answer this honestly. A blank here is more useful than a vague one.

4. The rules that must hold

Non-negotiables, written as rules, not vibes. ("Brand colour accuracy takes priority over aesthetic preference" is a rule. "Make it feel premium" is not.)

1. 2. 3.

5. How you'll know it worked

One line. If you can't check it, it's not a rule yet; it's a hope.

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This is the kind of document that sat behind the Image Management System and AI Content Transformation work. The gap between generic AI output and useful AI output is almost always a document like this one, or the absence of it.