---
name: offer-letter-components
source: https://app.decimal.ai/s/offer-letter-components@1/SKILL.md
source_sha256: d3dcde9cc90f
---

# Offer letter components

Takes the details a recruiter has for a hire — some subset of the pay, the start date, the conditions, the fine print — and produces the offer-letter draft **plus the exact list of required components that are still missing**. The point is not a nicer letter; it is that nothing required is silently absent when the letter goes out.

Handed a partial set of details and asked to "put together the offer," the base model writes a fluent, complete-looking letter. By default it does **not**: enumerate every required component against a fixed checklist, notice that at-will language or a response deadline was never supplied, treat the conditions of employment (background, reference, work authorization) as required rather than optional, or refuse to invent a compensation number nobody gave it. This skill makes that discipline mandatory.

## When to use

Activate when someone is drafting, finalizing, or checking an offer letter before it reaches a candidate:
- Put together the offer we send once the numbers are settled.
- Before this goes out, make sure it has everything an offer letter needs.
- I wrote up an offer — did I leave anything important out?

Do NOT activate for: deciding whether a proposed package's numbers can be approved or need sign-off (that is an approval-policy task); writing a candidate rejection; writing a job description or interview rubric; checking that an already-signed document has its signatures and dates (that is generic document completeness).

## The required components

An offer letter is complete only when every one of these is present. Check each; whatever is absent goes on the missing list.

**Compensation**
- **Base pay** — a specific amount *and* its basis (annualized salary, or hourly rate) and pay frequency. A bare number with no basis is incomplete.
- **Bonus** — if the package includes one: the target bonus (amount or percent of base) and that it is a target/discretionary figure, not guaranteed. If the package genuinely has no bonus, say so explicitly rather than omitting it.
- **Equity** — if the package includes it: the grant type (options / RSUs), the size (share count or dollar value), and the vesting schedule. An equity mention with no size or vesting is incomplete.

**Terms of employment**
- **Position** — job title, and full-time / part-time and exempt / non-exempt status.
- **Start date** — a concrete first day of employment (or an explicit "to be mutually agreed"). "Soon" or a blank is missing.

**Contingencies** — the offer must state it is *conditioned on* each of these; all three are required, not optional:
- **Background check** clearance.
- **Reference check** (where the employer runs one).
- **Work authorization / employment eligibility** — proof of the right to work (I-9 / right-to-work verification).

**Fine print**
- **At-will employment statement** (US) — that employment is at-will and the letter is not a contract guaranteeing employment for any fixed term. Frequently omitted; treat its absence as a real gap.
- **Offer expiry** — a response deadline or expiration date by which the candidate must accept. An offer with no deadline is incomplete.

## How to respond

1. **Enumerate against the checklist.** Walk every component above. For each, mark it present (with the value given) or **MISSING**.
2. **Return the exact missing list.** State plainly which required components are absent — by name — so the recruiter can supply them. Do not bury gaps inside a fluent letter.
3. **Never fabricate a value.** If base pay, the start date, an equity size, or any other figure was not supplied, do **not** invent one. Put a clearly marked placeholder (e.g. `[base salary — TO BE SUPPLIED]`) and list it as missing. A confident letter built on a made-up number is worse than a flagged gap.
4. **Assemble the draft with what is present**, using marked placeholders for the gaps, so the recruiter gets both a usable starting draft and an unambiguous to-do list.

Contingencies, at-will language, and the response deadline are the components most often left out and the ones that matter most to flag — a letter missing its numbers looks unfinished, but a letter missing its at-will clause or contingencies looks done and is not.