Recipe: Stakeholder Brief

Given a person's name, compile all recent interactions — meetings and emails — into a relationship brief. Useful before 1:1s, performance reviews, or re-engaging with someone after a gap.

Prerequisite: Read the use-spark base skill for command reference and filter syntax.

Access level required: read-only.

Steps

Step 1: Look up the person

spark contacts "person name"

Note their email address(es) and any other details.

Step 2: Pull recent email threads

spark emails --filter "from:person@co.com newer_than:30d"

Also check emails sent to them:

spark emails --filter "to:person@co.com newer_than:30d"

For the most important threads, read the full conversation:

spark thread <id>

Note open threads (unanswered or pending action) vs. resolved ones.

Step 3: Find shared meetings

spark meetings --filter "newer_than:30d"

Scan meeting titles and participant lists for the person. For each relevant meeting, pull the summary:

spark meeting <id>

If the person's contributions or commitments aren't clear from the summary:

spark meeting <id> --transcript --notes

Step 4: Check upcoming events with them

spark events --week

Note any upcoming meetings where this person is an attendee.

Step 5: Compile the brief

Organize into sections:

• Contact: name, email, role (if known from context)
• Last interaction: date and channel (meeting or email)
• Open items: threads awaiting response, commitments not yet fulfilled
• Recent topics: what you've discussed across meetings and email (grouped by theme)
• Upcoming: any scheduled meetings with them
• Key context: notable decisions made together, recurring discussion themes

Step 6: Present the brief

Lead with the most actionable information — open items and upcoming meetings — then provide the fuller context. Flag anything that looks like it needs attention before the next interaction.

Tips

• This recipe is person-centric, unlike recipe-meeting-prep which is event-centric. Use this when you want to understand the full relationship, not just prep for one meeting.
• For people you interact with frequently, narrow the time window to newer_than:14d to keep the brief focused.
• For people you haven't spoken to in a while, widen to newer_than:90d or use after:yyyy/MM/dd to capture the last meaningful period.
• Use spark search "person name" as a supplementary search to catch threads where they're mentioned but not in the from/to fields.
• If the person is a teammate, spark team "Team Name" may show their current email assignments.