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Skills / Chart the truth

Chart the truth

Make one chart that says something true. Right chart type, honest axes, labels that carry the point, exported for use. Use when they say "make a chart", "visualize this", need a graph for a class, or a chart they made looks off.

Use this skill. Nothing to install.

Open in ChatGPT Open in Claude prefilled and ready; just hit send
for Gemini, Copilot, or Cursor: paste it, then say "use the chart the truth skill"

Don't have an agent?  ·  Raw file: skills/chart-the-truth.md

Watch the first two minutes

This is how a chart session goes when the chart is already made and something about it smells off. Click through it.

​(pastes the skill) i made a chart of my study hours for a class presentation and my friend said it looks sketchy
Let's find out if it is. Before we look at the chart: say its sentence out loud. What is the one claim this chart should make?
that i studied way more after midterms
A change over time, so a line chart with time on the x-axis is right. Now the honest part. Where does your y-axis start?
...at 6 hours. which made the jump look enormous
That's what your friend smelled. A zoomed axis on a line chart is allowed, but you say so on the axis. Let's draw it both ways so you can see what the jump honestly looks like.
ok. it's still a real increase, just less dramatic
Then that's the chart. Title it with the claim itself, label both axes with units, put "6 weeks of data" in the caption, and it will survive anyone's squint. Drama you didn't earn always gets caught.

Scripted example of a real session.

I don't trust my own charts

Good instinct, and this skill is built on it. The standard it holds you to: a stranger seeing only the chart learns something true. So it makes you state the claim before choosing a chart type, and it shows you your own data with a truncated axis and with an honest one, once, so you can spot the trick anywhere for the rest of your life. If you want data of your own worth charting, these produce it fast:

Your listening, charted Your season in numbers Forecast vs reality

What you end up with

One chart, exported, in use somewhere real. Here is one from a commute argument that a sibling lost.

Example
Bus is 20 min slower than biking, door to door 1
Average commute in minutes  ·  9 school days in May, both directions 2
Bike
19 min
Bus
39 min
0 min bars drawn from zero 3
Exported as PNG  ·  sent to the family group chat, where the argument was happening 4
  1. The title is the claim. A dataset name ("Commute times May 2026") tells a stranger nothing. The sentence the data supports is the title.
  2. The caption carries n. Nine days of timing is a fact the reader deserves. Few data points is a caption line, never a secret.
  3. Bars start at zero. A truncated bar axis manufactures drama. The skill shows you your own chart both ways once, so you recognize the move in the wild.
  4. Shipped, then tested cold. A chart that never leaves the spreadsheet did not finish. You show it to one person and ask what it says; if their answer is not the claim, you revise the title and labels until it is.

Anatomy of an honest chart claim

Every chart from this skill can be read back as one checkable sentence:

Bus is 20 min slower than biking · average of 9 school days · minutes, door to door · bars from zero

Questions people actually ask

Which chart type should I use?

The claim decides. Change over time gets a line chart. Comparison across categories gets sorted bars. A relationship between two numbers gets a scatter plot. The skill says the reasoning out loud each time so it sticks.

Is a pie chart ever okay?

Defensible for two or three slices, and bars usually beat it even then. A 3D pie is never okay: the perspective distorts every slice.

Can I zoom the axis to show the change better?

On a bar chart, no; bars encode value by length, so they start at zero. On a line chart yes, if the axis says so. Hiding the zoom is where "sketchy" comes from.

My chart shows two things moving together. Can I say one caused the other?

No. The title may say "moved together" and nothing stronger. The skill asks what else changed at the same time and has you list rival explanations before you believe the flattering one.

What tools does this need?

The chart tools already inside Google Sheets or LibreOffice Calc, then an export to PNG or SVG. No design software, no code.

Where to go from here

One honest chart shipped? Build on it:

Simple dashboard Decide with data Slide deck

Need data worth a chart? Run one of these for a couple of weeks:

Hours vs grades Commute experiment Screen time honesty

Ideas to use it on

Curious? Read the full skill — the exact instructions your agent gets 
---
name: chart-the-truth
category: data
description: Make one chart that says something true. Right chart type, honest axes, labels that carry the point, exported for use. Use when they say "make a chart", "visualize this", need a graph for a class, or a chart they made looks off.
---

# chart-the-truth

Make one chart with someone, from their real data — the
sheet from spreadsheet-basics, a tracker, survey results, team stats.
One chart, done properly, teaches more than a gallery. The standard
is that a stranger seeing only the chart learns something true. Use
the chart tools in Google Sheets or LibreOffice Calc.

## Find the claim first

A chart is a sentence in picture form. Before choosing any chart
type, have them say the sentence: "spending went up after March",
"most responses picked option B", "my times are getting faster". If
the data does not support a sentence yet, go summarize it first
(spreadsheet-basics). No sentence, no chart.

## Choose the form

Match the chart to the shape of the claim, and say why out loud:

- Change over time → line chart. Time on the x-axis, evenly spaced.
- Comparison across categories → bar chart, sorted by value unless
  the categories have a natural order.
- Parts of a whole → bars usually beat a pie; a pie is defensible
  only for two or three slices. Never a 3D pie.
- Relationship between two numbers → scatter plot.

One chart, one claim. If they want two claims, that is two charts.

## Make it honest

These are the choices that make or break truthfulness — teach each
as it comes up:

- Bar charts start at zero. A truncated bar axis manufactures drama;
  show them the same data both ways once, so they can spot it in the
  wild. Line charts may zoom, but say so on the axis.
- Label the axes with units. Title the chart with the claim itself
  ("Bus is 20 min slower than biking"), not the dataset name.
- If two lines share a chart, label them directly; keep a legend only
  when direct labels will not fit.
- Delete decoration: gridlines beyond the faintest, backgrounds,
  shadows, effects. Ink that is not data is noise.
- A trend is not a cause. If the chart shows two things moving
  together, the title may say "moved together", never "because". Ask
  them what else changed at the same time; list rival explanations
  before believing the flattering one.
- Few data points is a caption fact, not a secret: "n=9" belongs on
  the chart if only nine people answered.

## Ship it

Export as PNG or SVG and put it where it was needed: the essay, the
slide, the team group chat, the README of their project. A chart that
never leaves the spreadsheet did not finish. Have them show it to one
person cold and ask what it says — if the answer is not the claim,
revise the title and labels until it is.

## Done

- One chart, exported, in use somewhere real
- Claim as the title, labeled axes, honest baseline, no junk
- The one-sentence claim survives the cold-viewer test
- They can name the dishonest version of their own chart and what
  it would have exaggerated

Then: simple-dashboard when one chart becomes three numbers they
want to keep watching.