The milestone is in three weeks and the feature is still a conversation. Your assistant drafted a design defence. A publisher who already funded the game does not need the pitch again. They need to own a cut, a keep, or a slip.
This is scope, said before the date breaks, from the maker's side of the table. Write it as a choice they can put in a status mail.
Feature, cost, what you already killed
Ask for a decision: ship the raid-ready mark in this milestone, cut it to a later one, or move the milestone by the span you name. Say what the player can do if it ships, and what they cannot do if it does not. Then the options you already ruled out — a smaller version you will not pretend is the same, a delay you will not absorb in crunch — and why those are off the table.
Separate the recommendation from the options. They can take your lean or pick the cut without it reading as a fight with you.
Do not attach the design document. RelayLink does not carry attachments. Describe the behaviour and the production cost in the briefing. Builds and docs stay on the channel you already use.
One feature, one milestone
A list of five at-risk items is a production meeting. Send the one whose answer changes the build this week. The others can wait a day.
Mark the premises. You assumed the licensor still wants the mark. You assumed the other studio's dependency lands. You assumed the date they named is still the date they will ship marketing against. A labelled line gets a correction. A confident paragraph about "the fantasy" does not.
If the cost is hours you have already spent, put that in a short record block and keep it apart from the decision about what is left. A bill for the past invites an argument about the past.
You send it; they reply from the inbox they actually read
You approve the wording. Use the product name they use with their own stakeholders. A nickname you keep for a producer stays on your side.
They do not need an account. Plenty of publisher contacts will never open RelayLink. They get email and a link. If this person already has an activated account, you need an accepted pair for a new thread. They can reply from the mail. That reply is what you tell the team.
After they choose
Write back the decision in the same three words — ship, cut, slip — and the date, and ask them to correct that sentence. Then change the plan you show in the next build. Do not keep the cut feature in the trailer you send on Friday unless they said ship.
The design can still be ambitious. This message is the ambition you are willing to time-box.