skills/memo-builder/references/quality-workflow.md

# Memo Builder Quality And Workflow

## Quality Bar

1. Lead with a clear recommendation or decision ask.
2. State the primary decision hinge in plain English.
3. Include base, upside, and downside scenario framing when recommending action.
4. Make downside mechanistic: `Shock -> Transmission -> Constraint -> Outcome`.
5. Include measurable `What must be true` items tied to monitoring triggers.
6. Tie every important number to a source, model output, or explicit assumption.
7. Separate thesis drivers from upside-only hopes.
8. Do not rely only on multiple expansion, market recognition, or rerating language.
9. Include valuation, pricing, expected-value, or common-equity recovery read-through support appropriate to the memo; route credit recovery work to Credit Markets.
10. For a multi-year valuation based on forward-period earnings and an exit or terminal multiple, show discounted present value with an explicit discount rate / required-return assumption or annualized return / IRR against a stated hurdle. Do not treat undiscounted terminal price appreciation alone as sufficient initiation support.
11. Disclose quality caveats for adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EPS, adjusted FCF, or non-GAAP KPIs.
12. Include disconfirming evidence and what would change the view.
13. If uncertainty changes the decision, show action options, staging, hedges, smaller size, or data requests.
14. Express asymmetric readiness plainly when relevant: the evidence may be sufficient to decline initiation today while remaining insufficient to support initiation.

## Workflow

1. Classify request type and memo mode.
2. Decide whether this is a formal memo or actually a trade pitch. If pitch, route to `long-short-pitch`.
3. Run the source gate and label stale/missing/assumed data.
4. Define the economic engine: public equity, equity-risk credit signal, event-driven, macro/sector, or PM update; route credit-first engines to Credit Markets.
5. Convert narrative into 2-5 falsifiable thesis claims: `claim -> evidence -> implication -> KPI -> falsifier -> time-to-truth`.
6. Choose one primary valuation/pricing method and 1-2 cross-checks.
7. Build scenarios, return-hurdle framing for multi-year forward valuation, and downside mechanism.
8. Build risk register, catalysts, and monitoring plan.
9. Load `references/sector-overlays.md` only for matching sectors.
10. Render the memo in the chosen mode.
11. Run final QA and compression.

## Strategy Requirements

- Public equity memo: valuation bridge, scenario price targets or present values, return hurdle / IRR framing for multi-year scenarios, KPI drivers, revision/catalyst path, downside mechanism.
- Credit-first memo: route to Credit Markets for credit instruments, creditworthiness, restructuring, distressed, recovery, spreads, yields, covenants, and debt security analysis.
- Event-driven memo: probability tree, expected value, spread, break price, milestone calendar, timing risk.
- Macro/rates/commodity memo: factor driver, transmission path, sensitivity, hedge/portfolio interaction, catalyst calendar.
- PM update: what changed, model/valuation impact, thesis impact, action options, next monitoring trigger.
- Client/research note: polished narrative, source caveats, clear conclusion, audience-appropriate trade detail.

## PM Memo QA

No recommendation should pass without downside mechanism, source posture, measurable disconfirmers, and an explicit action classification. Penalize generic good-company or cheap-stock prose that does not identify the variant wedge and what is priced in.