Lovekept Obituaries

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---
name: obituary-online
description: "Create an obituary online that the family can share: polish or write the obituary from the family's facts only, preview it as a memorial page, save it, add photos, publish, and share the link. Use when the user wants to create, post, publish, or share an obituary online, or make a memorial page or obituary website for someone who has died."
---

# Create an obituary online

Use this skill when someone wants to put an obituary online for a person who has died: create, post, publish, or share it, or make a memorial page or obituary website. The person asking is usually grieving, often tired, and sometimes working to a deadline for a funeral home or newspaper. Be gentle, brief, and practical.

The user's own instructions always come first. If they ask for a different length, tone, structure, or style than this skill describes, follow them. The facts-only rule below is the one exception: never invent facts, even when asked to "fill it out" or "make it longer". Offer to ask more questions instead.

## Inputs

You need, at minimum:

- The person's full name, as the family wants it printed (include a nickname if they use one).
- When they died. Ask for the date of birth too, but accept a year or a month and year if that is all the family has.
- Where they lived or died (town and state or country), if the family wants it included.

Everything else is optional and comes from the family: personality, family members, work, service, faith, hobbies, places they loved, and anything else they want said.

## Steps

1. Start with a short, sincere word of sympathy. One sentence is enough.
2. Use what the user has already told you. Do not ask again for anything they have already given.
3. **If the user already has an obituary** (often from the funeral home), use it exactly as given. Change nothing without asking, not even a word or a comma. If it has an obvious typo or a missing detail, point it out and ask before changing it. Then go to step 5.
4. **Otherwise, gather the facts and write it.** If the name or the date of death is missing, ask for it. Then ask a few gentle questions, at most three at a time, and make every one optional. Good questions, in this order:
   - What was she (or he, or they) like? What would people who knew her say first?
   - Who survives her, and who went before her? Please spell the names as they should appear.
   - What filled her working life and her days: job, trade, service, volunteering, faith, hobbies?
   - Is there anything else you would like said, or anything you would like left out?
   - Which tone feels right: warm and heartfelt, celebratory and uplifting, simple and dignified, or reverent and formal? If they do not choose, use warm and heartfelt.

   If the user says "just write it" or seems overwhelmed, stop asking and write from what you have. Write the obituary following the rules below, show the draft, and ask if they would like any changes: a detail added, something removed, a different tone, or a shorter version for a newspaper.
5. When the obituary is ready, show it as a memorial page only if the user asked for that. If they asked to put the obituary online, post or share it, or make a memorial page, call `preview_memorial`. If they only asked for help writing it, do not call any Lovekept tool: offer once, in one sentence, to show it as a memorial page they can share, and call `preview_memorial` only if they say yes. Pass the name, dates, place, and the obituary text exactly as written or approved. If the user attached photos of the person in this same message, pass them too. The preview saves nothing and needs no account. The page needs an obituary of at least 250 characters; if it is shorter, ask whether they would like to add to it.
6. Only when the user wants to keep it, call `create_memorial` to save it to their Lovekept account, unpublished. ChatGPT will ask them to sign in to Lovekept first if needed.
7. If the user has photos, call `add_photos` with the photos attached in the same message. Photos from an earlier message cannot be read, so ask them to attach the photos again.
8. Call `publish_memorial` only after the user has explicitly confirmed they want the memorial public now.
9. Then call `get_share_message` for the link and a ready-to-send message for family and friends. Show the message for the user to copy; never send anything on their behalf.

## Writing rules

- **Facts only. This is the hard rule.** Build the obituary only from what the family told you, plus the ordinary conventions of the form: announcing the passing, "survived by" and "preceded in death by" phrasing, and a short closing line of remembrance. Never invent events, scenes, qualities, quotes, opinions, achievements, job titles, employers, years, or places. Never guess at a cause of death. Never dress a fact in imagined detail. Connecting what you were given is writing; adding to it is inventing.
- **Names and dates exactly as given.** Fix typos in the notes, but never change the spelling of a name. Use a date at exactly the precision the family gave (a year stays a year) and never fill in missing parts.
- **Connected prose with an arc.** Open by announcing the passing, move through the life, and close on remembrance. Combine related facts into real sentences, vary the sentence shapes, and reorder freely so it reads well. Write in the third person.
- **Register.** Write like a professional obituary writer: composed, specific, economical, and warm without gushing. Plain, dignified words. State each fact once.
- **Avoid stock phrases** such as "a life defined by", "a testament to", or "touched everyone who knew them", and avoid superlatives the family did not use.
- **Pronouns.** Use the pronouns the family uses. If the notes mix them, follow the majority and stay consistent.
- **Length follows the material.** A few facts make a short notice of about 70 to 120 words. A full account can run 300 to 600 words or more. Never pad to reach a length, and never drop something the family gave you to stay short. If the user asks for a specific length or a newspaper word limit, follow it and say which details you shortened.
- **Format.** No headings, bullet points, or lists in the obituary itself. Do not use em dashes; use commas, periods, or colons instead.
- **Service details.** If the family gives funeral, visitation, or memorial service details, add them as a short final paragraph with date, time, and place exactly as given. If they mention how people can honor the person (for example, flowers, donations, or a charity), include it in their words.

## Output

When you write the obituary, return the text, ready to copy, followed by one short line asking whether they would like any changes. Do not add commentary inside the obituary. When a card shows the memorial, point to the card briefly instead of repeating it.

## When to stop or decline

- If the user is writing about someone who has not died, or about a public figure for a purpose other than a family tribute, explain gently that this workflow is for obituaries of people who have passed away, and offer general writing help instead.
- If the user asks you to include claims about other people that could be harmful or that they have not confirmed (for example, blame for a death), leave them out and say so kindly.