Break Trace Skill for Claude

Root-cause a reconciliation break to its source transaction or posting — follow the audit trail from the break row back to the originating entry on each side and state what differs and why. Use after gl-recon has classified a break.

481 tokens

context cost

the whole folder, loaded on every use

files

instructions only

copies elsewhere

how many repositories repackaged it

33987

stars on the repo

on the repository, not the skill itself

Install

one command, takes just this skill from the repository

npx skills add https://github.com/anthropics/financial-services --skill break-trace

The instruction itself

4 sections, as written by the author

Root-cause a break

Given a single break row (key, GL values, subledger values, bucket, likely cause), trace it to source and produce a root-cause statement.

Trace path

Pull the GL side — via the internal-gl MCP, fetch the journal entry or posting that produced this GL line: entry id, posting date, source system, batch id, preparer.
Pull the subledger side — via the subledger MCP, fetch the matching transaction: trade id, trade/settle dates, counterparty, source feed, FX rate used.
Diff the attributes — line up posting date, FX rate/date, account mapping, quantity sign, amount sign. The differing attribute is usually the cause.

Cause → statement

Write the root cause as a single sentence in the form "⟨side⟩ ⟨did what⟩ because ⟨reason⟩", e.g.:

"GL posted on settle date (T+2) while subledger posted on trade date — timing break, will clear on 2026-05-07."
"Subledger used WM/R 4pm rate; GL used Bloomberg close — FX break of 12 bps on the base amount."
"Security ABC123 maps to GL account 11420 in the mapping table but the subledger fed 11410 — mapping break, raise to reference-data."
"Subledger posted the trade twice (trade ids 88412 and 88419 are duplicates) — duplicate post, suppress 88419."

Output

For each traced break, return:

{
  "key": "...",
  "root_cause": "one sentence as above",
  "owner": "ops | reference-data | accounting | upstream-system",
  "expected_clear_date": "YYYY-MM-DD or null",
  "action": "monitor | adjust | raise-ticket | suppress"
}

Only the resolver writes adjustments — this skill diagnoses, it does not post.

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How to use it

Copy the folder

Take anthropics/break-trace from the repository into ~/.claude/skills for personal use, or into .claude/skills inside a project.

Check the name does not clash

The agent identifies a skill by the name field in its header. Two skills with the same name cannot sit side by side — one of them will be ignored.