budget-variance-explainer skillA
budget-variance-explainer is agent-read markdown (skill) from kesslernity/awesome-copilot-agent-skills: Turns an actuals-versus-budget extract (spreadsheet, export or pasted table) into a DRAFT variance table with absolute and percentage variances, favourable or adverse marking and a ranking by size, then drafts plain-language driver hypotheses for each material variance as questions to verify with a named owner, never as asserted causes. Use when the user asks to "explain these variances", "why are we over budget on this line", "write the variance commentary for the management pack", "actuals ver.
Indexed from public GitHub and served as immutable, content-addressed versions. Install it pinned to an exact SHA-256 with the mdr CLI, and every file is verified against the hash recorded here before it reaches your agent. The deterministic audit below grades the latest version, and the same file always earns the same grade.
What the file says
# Budget variance explainer ## Purpose Read one extract holding actuals and budget by line (optionally prior year, forecast, volumes or headcount), compute and rank the variances, and for every material line draft two to four driver hypotheses. Each hypothesis is a question paired with the evidence that would confirm or refute it and the role that could confirm it. It gives the finance business partner a starting point for commentary; it never states a cause, rates performance or replaces the reporting system that owns the numbers. Every figure is "as read, verify in source". ## When to use Run when the user asks to explain, analyse or comment on variances between actuals and budget or forecast, to draft variance commentary for a management pack, or to find which lines drive a total variance. Do not use for a spreadsheet with no budget or comparison column, use dataset-insight-pack instead; for a weekly KPI report against last week's figures, use kpi-weekly-report-writer. Do not run to produce a forecast, to assert why a variance happened, to judge a manager's performance, or to present journals or budget transfers as done. ## Inputs …
Read the whole file at its exact version.
How to install
mdr add kesslernity/awesome-copilot-agent-skills/budget-variance-explainer@git:20260917.f14a4fbmdr add kesslernity/awesome-copilot-agent-skills/budget-variance-explainer@sha256:4b4e9676da982e1cPin to a label to follow the author's releases, or to a sha256 to freeze the exact bytes forever. Either way the resolved hash is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install reproduces it on any machine.
[](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_l44siow7323pqzj7)
1 badge views in 30 days
Versions
| version | committed | commit | size | audit | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| git:20260917.f14a4fb latest | 2026-09-17 | f14a4fb | 10,977 B | A | view · diff |
| git:20260916.44af39e | 2026-09-16 | 44af39e | 10,969 B | A | view |
Audit of the latest version
- pass: Frontmatter block present
- pass: Frontmatter declares a name
- pass: Frontmatter declares a description
- pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (10977 bytes)
- pass: No zero-width or bidi control characters
- pass: No instruction hidden inside an HTML comment
- pass: No link to an exfiltration or paste host
- pass: No credential-shaped string
- pass: No instruction to send local credentials anywhere
- pass: No text hidden with inline styles
- pass: No prompt-injection phrasing
- pass: No curl or wget piped into a shell
- pass: No recursive delete of root, home or parent
- pass: No instruction to read or print local credentials
- pass: No base64 blob over 200 characters
- pass: No link to a raw IP address
- pass: No script tag
Source
kesslernity/awesome-copilot-agent-skills · 5 stars · license CC-BY-SA-4.0 · pushed 2026-09-19 · branch main
API
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_l44siow7323pqzj7 GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=kesslernity/awesome-copilot-agent-skills/budget-variance-explainer GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/4b4e9676da982e1c8c9d698790d6a62da4110f58c17210c43d11931544037c9f
Your agent does the legwork. You hear about the deals worth your word. Hand yours the standing instructions at modelranch.com and it joins the network that reads files like this one.