How to Set Up Your Weekly Summary Agent So It Sounds Like You

When you first turn on weekly summaries in Simma, the agent already knows how to write a coaching email. It'll reference specific sessions by name and day, pull out real metrics from the data, read training load trends, flag anything that needs attention, and connect the week to your athlete's goals. It does all of that out of the box.

What it doesn't know — until you tell it — is how you coach. Whether you're the blunt, no-nonsense type or the warm, wrap-an-arm-around-them type. Whether you call your athletes "mate" or by their surname. Whether you want every email to reinforce the current training phase or whether you'd rather keep the tone lighter.

That's what the Tone of Voice and Instructions fields are for. They're how you teach the agent to write like you, not like a generic coaching bot.

This guide walks through what the agent already handles, and how to use those two fields to shape the rest.

What the agent does by default

You don't need to tell the agent how to structure an email or what data to reference. Here's what's already baked in:

It follows a narrative arc. Every summary flows through the same shape: it opens with the headline story of the week, digs into 2-3 specific sessions with real metrics, reads the training load trend (building fitness? accumulating fatigue? recovering?), flags anything that warrants attention, connects the week to upcoming goals, and closes with one clear focus for the week ahead.

It matches its emotional register to the data. A breakthrough week gets celebrated. A tough week with missed sessions gets honest but supportive framing. A recovery week doesn't get dressed up as something it wasn't. You don't need to instruct the agent to "be encouraging" — it already calibrates based on what actually happened.

It avoids filler. The agent won't write "great effort this week" unless it can say why it was a great effort. Generic praise and empty encouragement are explicitly ruled out.

It flags concerns and opens the door. If resting heart rate is elevated, sessions were missed, or fatigue markers look off, the agent names it plainly and invites the athlete to respond with context. This turns the summary into a two-way conversation, not just a report.

It gives one focus for next week. Not a list of five things. One clear, specific priority. "Nail the Saturday long ride" or "keep the easy days genuinely easy this week."

It handles quiet weeks gracefully. If an athlete logged no activities, the agent doesn't skip them or pretend otherwise. It acknowledges the quiet week supportively and gives one practical thought for the week ahead.

It stays honest. The agent will never fabricate workout details that aren't in the data.

It writes concise, plain-text emails. Summaries land between 200 and 400 words — long enough to be useful, short enough to get read. No bullet points, no numbered lists, no markdown formatting. Just natural paragraphs, the way you'd actually write to an athlete.

It writes subject lines that feel personal. Not "Your Weekly Training Summary." Something specific to that athlete's week — the kind of subject line that makes them want to open it.

So what's left for you to configure? Two things: how it sounds, and any coaching-specific context it can't infer from the data alone.

How to write your Tone of Voice

The Tone of Voice field shapes how the agent writes — the register, warmth, formality, and personality of the email. Think of it as answering: "If I were writing this email myself at my best, what would it sound like?"

Keep it short. One to three sentences is plenty. The agent interprets natural language, so write it the way you'd describe your style to a colleague.

Examples that work well:

• "Warm and encouraging, but direct when something needs to change. I don't sugarcoat."
• "Casual and relaxed. I use humour. Think friendly text message, not corporate email."
• "Professional and measured. I coach experienced athletes who want precision, not pep talks."
• "Supportive and enthusiastic. I work with age-group triathletes who are training around busy lives — they need to feel good about showing up."
• "Blunt and concise. My athletes want the signal, not the noise."

What to avoid:

• Don't restate things the agent already does. You don't need to write "be specific about workouts" — that's already handled.
• Don't write an essay. The tone field is a lens, not a rulebook. If it's more than three sentences, you're probably putting instructions in the wrong field.
• Don't say "professional" on its own. That's too vague. Professional and warm? Professional and technical? Professional and brief? Add a second word.

How to write your Instructions

The Instructions field is where you add coaching context and preferences that the agent can't get from the training data alone. This is the field that makes your summaries genuinely yours.

Think of it as everything you'd tell a trusted assistant who was drafting emails on your behalf: "Here's what's going on right now, here's what I care about, here's what I never want you to do."

Things worth putting in your instructions

Your current training phase or squad-wide context. The agent sees each athlete's data individually, but it doesn't know your periodisation plan. Telling it "most of my squad is in a base-building phase through April" or "A-races are 8 weeks out for the majority of athletes" gives it the context to frame the forward-looking part of every email accurately.

How direct to be when flagging concerns. The agent will flag issues by default, but you can shape how. "Be direct when flagging injury risk — don't bury it in soft language" or "Frame concerns gently. My athletes are recreational and I don't want them to panic over a single high heart rate reading."

Athlete segment differences. If you coach a mix of competitive and recreational athletes, you might note: "For competitive athletes, be precise and data-heavy. For recreational athletes, keep it lighter and focus more on consistency than metrics."

Things you always want mentioned. "Always reference hydration and nutrition if an athlete trained in heat" or "always remind athletes to log their RPE if they haven't been."

Things you never want the agent to say. "Never use the word 'journey.' Don't reference weight or body composition. Don't tell athletes to 'listen to their body' — I find that advice too vague to be useful."

Your coaching philosophy, briefly. "I believe consistency beats intensity. I'd rather an athlete do five easy sessions than three hard ones and two missed days." A sentence or two here shapes how the agent frames everything from missed sessions to load progression.

What you don't need to include

• Anything about email structure — that's handled.
• Anything about referencing specific metrics or sessions — that's handled.
• Subject line guidance — the agent already writes specific, personal subject lines.
• Instructions to "be personalised" or "use the athlete's name" — these are defaults.

A worked example

Here's what a complete setup might look like for a triathlon coach:

Tone of Voice: "Warm, encouraging, and a bit informal. I use first names and the occasional bit of humour. Think a message from a mate who happens to know a lot about training."

Instructions: "Most of my squad is building toward Ironman 70.3 Geelong in June. We're in the back end of base phase, transitioning to race-specific in mid-April. When flagging concerns, be straightforward but not alarming — my athletes are mostly age-groupers with jobs and families. Always tie the week back to the June race if relevant. Never use the phrase 'trust the process.'"

Sign-off: "Cheers, Dan"

The agent takes that, combines it with the athlete's actual training data, and produces a summary that sounds like Dan wrote it — because the voice, priorities, and context are all Dan's. The agent just did the data-reading and drafting.

Updating your settings over time

Your tone and instructions aren't set-and-forget. As your squad moves through training phases, update the instructions to reflect where you are. Swap "base-building through April" for "race-specific block, taper begins in three weeks" when the time comes. If you notice the summaries doing something you don't like, add a line to your instructions to correct it. The agent learns from what you give it — the more specific you are, the closer the output gets to what you'd write yourself.

Simma drafts your weekly athlete summaries so you can spend your time coaching, not writing emails. Your voice, your athletes, your way. Join the early access waitlist.