define-voice

name	define-voice
description	Use when establishing or refining how an author wants to sound before writing Ghost posts, especially with no published corpus yet (cold start) — interviews the author about audience, tone, and admired references, and gathers reference material to seed the style guide. Triggers on "define my voice", "set up my writing style", "I'm starting a new blog", "here are posts I like".

Define your writing voice

You are helping this author establish a writing voice from scratch — no published corpus is required. Work through each phase in order. Do not rush ahead; the interview is the most important part.

Phase 1: Interview (one question at a time)

Ask each question below one at a time. Wait for the author's answer before continuing. Do not combine questions. Record every answer verbatim — accuracy matters more than polish.

Question 1 — Who are you writing for?

Who is your ideal reader? Paint a specific picture: their background, what they already know, what they're trying to accomplish when they open your post.

Wait for the answer. Then ask:

Question 2 — What do you want them to walk away with?

After reading a typical post from you, what should your reader feel, know, or be able to do? What is the job your writing does for them?

Wait for the answer. Then ask:

Question 3 — How would you describe your natural tone?

When you write at your best, how would you describe the voice? (e.g., direct and opinionated, conversational but precise, warm and encouraging, dry and deadpan.) Pick three adjectives if that's easier.

Wait for the answer. Then ask:

Question 4 — What do you admire in other writers' work?

Name one or two writers, posts, newsletters, or documentation pages whose style you admire or wish you wrote like. What specifically appeals to you about them? (Links welcome — you can drop URLs or file paths here and I'll pull them in.)

Wait for the answer. Then ask:

Question 5 — What do you actively want to avoid?

What writing habits, tones, or styles do you dislike or want to steer clear of in your own posts? (e.g., over-hedging, excessive jargon, listicle format, corporate speak.)

Wait for the answer. Then ask:

Question 6 — Any structural or formatting preferences?

Do you have opinions on how posts should be structured? (e.g., always start with a hook, prefer prose over bullets, short paragraphs, concrete code examples, a specific opening/closing pattern.)

Wait for the answer. After all six answers are collected, move to Phase 2.

Phase 2: Gather reference material

The author may have shared URLs or file paths in their answers — especially in response to Question 4. Collect them now.

For each external URL the author mentioned:

Fetch the page and extract relevant passages:

WebFetch(url="<url the author provided>")

Summarize what you observe about the writing style, tone, structure, and any specific techniques used. Capture two to five illustrative quotes or patterns.

For each local file the author mentioned:

Read("<absolute path to file>")

Apply the same style analysis: tone, structure, notable patterns, illustrative quotes.

If the author provided no references, note that explicitly — the style guide will rely entirely on the interview answers.

Phase 3: Write the handoff file

Write everything collected to .claude/ghost-voice-inputs.md. This file is the input build-style-guide reads to synthesize the style guide.

The handoff file must follow this exact structure:

# Ghost Voice Inputs

_Generated by /ghost:define-voice on <date>. Feed this to /ghost:build-style-guide._

## Interview Answers

**Q1 — Who is the audience?**
<verbatim answer>

**Q2 — What should readers walk away with?**
<verbatim answer>

**Q3 — Tone and voice**
<verbatim answer>

**Q4 — Admired references**
<verbatim answer or "None provided">

**Q5 — What to avoid**
<verbatim answer>

**Q6 — Structural preferences**
<verbatim answer>

## Reference Notes

### <Source title or URL or filename>

- **Tone:** <what you observed>
- **Structure:** <what you observed>
- **Notable patterns:** <list>
- **Illustrative quotes:**
  > "<quote>"
  > "<quote>"

<!-- Repeat for each reference. -->

_No references were provided._ <!-- Use this line if none were given. -->

Confirm the file is written, then tell the author how many interview answers and how many references were captured.

Phase 4: Hand off to build-style-guide

Once .claude/ghost-voice-inputs.md is written, prompt the author:

Voice inputs are saved to .claude/ghost-voice-inputs.md. Run /ghost:build-style-guide next — it will synthesize these answers and references into a full style guide that the writing skills will use.

Do not run /ghost:build-style-guide automatically. The author may want to review or edit the voice inputs file first.

Notes

• This skill works with no existing corpus. If the author does have published posts, they can still run this skill first and then run /ghost:build-style-guide (which will merge the interview inputs with any fetched corpus automatically).
• Only local tools are used here: WebFetch for external URLs, Read for local files. No Ghost MCP tools are called.
• If the author is unsure about any question, encourage a short, imperfect answer rather than skipping — build-style-guide can work with rough material.