Minto is a Claude Code and Codex skill that turns notes and drafts into a clear argument: it identifies the reader’s question, surfaces the main answer, groups supporting points and shows where evidence is missing.
The main point comes firstThe reader sees where you are going
Arguments grouped by kindReasons with reasons, steps with steps
Missing evidence is markedUnsupported claims stay visibly separate
Before / after: how Minto changes the structure
Minto moves the decision to the top and organises the evidence around it. Compare the original email with the result, then see how the skill checks logic, draws the structure and combines sources.
The same facts are organised around the decision instead of placed before it.
Source · four paragraphs of evidence
Hi Alex,
I am increasingly worried about the defect backlog. The attached chart compares new defects with the number we close and projects the backlog one year ahead.
Customer Experience and Research also report that defects are contributing to churn. A second chart places churn beside defect volume, and an interview illustrates the same issue.
There are signs of brand damage too: user posts, a complaint from a major account, and Sales reports that these concerns are making deals harder to close.
I recommend using the next sprint to reduce the defect backlog. Let me know what you think.
Alex reads four paragraphs of evidence before finding out what he is being asked to decide.
With Minto · write · scores: structure 8/8, quality 10/10
Hi Alex,
Let’s spend the next sprint on the defect backlog — we’re losing customers and deals to it faster than we’re closing it.
The backlog will keep growing on its own. We’re opening defects faster than we close them; the attached chart projects where that leaves us in a year if we don’t intervene now.
Defects are costing us customers. Customer Experience and Research tie them directly to churn — the second chart puts churn alongside defect volume, and the attached interview shows the mechanism up close.
They’re now costing us new business too. User posts and a complaint from one of our largest accounts have made this visible outside the product, and Sales reports it’s slowing close rates.
Can you confirm the sprint focus so we can shape the backlog before planning?
The skill moved the ask to the top and organised the evidence around it. The scores did not change: the same model’s control run also scored 8/8 and 10/10, and both texts contained one unsupported fact. This example shows the restructuring; the overall effect appears across the 172 judgements below.
A short note to a colleague
The short note stays short while the conclusion moves to the top.
Source · a list of constraints
Collins cannot attend at 3:00. Johnson can meet later today or tomorrow, but not before 10:30. Clifford will not return from Frankfurt until late tomorrow. The conference room is occupied tomorrow but available on Thursday. Thursday at 11:00 appears possible. Is that acceptable?
The reader assembles the conclusion himself, out of five constraints.
With Minto
Could we move today’s meeting to Thursday at 11:00?
Collins and Clifford can’t make 3:00 today — Clifford is in Frankfurt until late tomorrow — and Johnson is only free from 10:30 tomorrow, when the conference room is already booked. Thursday at 11:00 works for all three, and the room is free.
Let me know if that suits you and I’ll send the invitations.
A memorandum in six sections
The diagnosis uses the setout without rewriting it; unknown body content stays outside the assessment.
Source · the setout
“This memorandum describes how project teams identify and deliver significant profit improvements. It is organized in six sections:”
Background
Principles of the project-team approach
Definition of project work
Organization of the program
Distinctive benefits and results
Conditions required for success
Six topics of six different kinds. What the reader must decide is never stated.
With Minto · audit2/10structure score
critical
No answer anywhere in the visible text — the document has a subject, not a controlling idea.
critical
One level mixes context, a definition, process, benefits and conditions. It is not one logical list.
medium
“Benefits and results” is the answer to the reader’s question, buried as the fifth of six items.
medium
Principles, definition and organization overlap: all three describe what the approach is.
The three changes with the greatest effect
State the answer in the first sentence. Promote “benefits and results” to the first level. Rewrite the six topic labels as three or four same-kind assertions.
A memo on composing cost
The argument structure becomes visible separately from the prose.
Source · a page of prose
“Composition represents about 40% of hardback cost and 50–55% of paperback cost. TTW does not know whether the cost is excessive, but customers regard it as uncompetitive on simple jobs. Our preliminary work indicates that TTW can cut composing cost substantially…”
Then two all-caps sections and ten facts inside paragraphs: a 20–50% productivity gap, identical checks for every title, below-market pay, two compositors just gone, overtime more than 50% over budget.
With Minto · viz
TTW can cut composing cost substantially
Remove unnecessary process stages
Productivity trails the benchmark by 20–50%
Every title gets the same checks regardless of complexity
Test next week: fewer checks on simple jobs
Possible saving up to 10% of composing cost
Raise wages to the local market level
Pay is below nearby printers
Two compositors have just left
Overtime exceeds budget by more than 50%
A new union claim may force higher pay anyway
The skill marks its own gap: the saving is quantified for the first branch only — “substantially” is unmeasured for the second.
Three compliance sources
Several sources become one decision instead of a sequence of summaries.
Sources · 3 files
gate-review.xlsx
Seven questions answered by the bank’s compliance office. One is declined outright: “cannot be answered without an architecture diagram”.
sync-0709.md
The package list “is being prepared”. A new contact is named. The remark about two engineers in Lisbon draws no response.
Risk register
Three open rows: the price cannot be fixed, the list is 98 days late, the diagram has not been sent.
With Minto · digest
The one thing to do today: send the architecture diagram.
It has been drafted since 11 August and it is the only compliance blocker Fernway owns — the 9 July sync agreed it must arrive before the next sync so the storage, encryption and logging questions can get a real answer. Everything else is waiting on Aldergate, and two items have been waiting long enough to need escalating by name.
Already answered, treat as settled
A security review before production is mandatory. An internal hardening framework exists, though conforming to it does not remove the review. An open-source policy exists. Work from Ireland is acceptable.
Waiting on Aldergate, and overdue
The approved-package list was promised on 12 May and again on 9 July, both times with no date — 98 days open. The named information-security owner has never joined a joint meeting. Ask them for the list directly, or for a date in writing.
Two answers they will not give in advance — and they hit the price
Whether a penetration test is required is decided by the reviewer during the review. Dependency approval has no standard turnaround. So the build-phase price cannot be a single number: either carve both out as separately-priced items, or hold the price until the review is scheduled.
One open risk to raise ourselves
On 9 July it was said that two engineers are based in Lisbon, and nobody from the bank responded. Silence in a meeting is not approval — put Lisbon in writing alongside the diagram, before those engineers touch bank data.
Tested in 172 blind judgements
Minto’s effect is measured on real texts, showing where the structure improved and where the skill still needs work.
+7
points: argument structure
+7
points: overall writing quality
+22
points: the reader’s question written down in the text
−10
points: the answer stands in the first sentence less often
Choose the result you need and invoke the command beside it: intent, audit, write, digest or viz.
Work out what you want to say
intent
The reader’s question, the answer in one line, and the gap named
Check the logic without rewriting
audit
A structure score and every defect named — the text stays untouched
Rebuild a text around its main answer
write
A document that starts with the conclusion
Turn several sources into one decision
digest
One thing to do today, with every point back to its source
See the structure of an argument
viz
The pyramid and the situation–complication–question–answer flow
The flow the skill checks in every document
Situationwhat the reader already agrees with
Complicationwhat changed or gets in the way
Questionwhat the reader has to decide
Answerwhat they should do or understand
How the benchmark works
The method, all six measures and model-level scores.
How we tested it
11 different jobs
Emails, memos, an audit, a digest and a pasteable list — from a two-line note to an eight-page review.
Structure against instruction
Minto fixes the reader’s question, the answer and its supports; the control prompt only asks for the Pyramid Principle.
One rubric for every text
Shuffled outputs are scored against the same criteria without revealing the model or preparation method.
Every figure is reproducible
A script calculates every figure on this page from the published verdicts.
What changed in the texts
without the skillwith Mintothe difference
The reader’s question is written down
13%
35%
+22 percentage points
First-level points are all the same kind
54%
66%
+12 percentage points
Structure, share of the judge’s 8 points
59%
66%
+7 percentage points
Writing quality, share of the judge’s 10 points
72%
79%
+7 percentage points
No source material lost without saying so
62%
65%
+3 percentage points
Answer in the first sentence
got worse
84%
74%
−10 percentage points
View the exact scores by model
Share of the judge’s maximum, control then with Minto. Eleven documents per model (nine for qwen3.8-27b — two timed out in both arms).
Model
Structure /8
Quality /10
Claude Opus 5
63%84%
74%90%
Claude Sonnet 5
66%61%
78%80%
Claude Haiku 4.5
53%63%
67%76%
Codex gpt-5.6-terra
60%67%
75%82%
gpt-oss-120b
50%52%
53%64%
qwen3.6-35b-a3b
58%67%
76%79%
qwen3.6-fp8
64%69%
75%80%
qwen3.8-27b
63%63%
79%81%
In raw points, pooled across all eight models: structure 4.76 out of 8 becomes 5.27, quality 7.17 out of 10 becomes 7.90. Applying the rubric’s own penalty for invented or dropped facts gives 6.34 against 7.08.