| name | consulting-copy-writer |
| description | Apply when writing any text for or as the user: social posts, emails, newsletters, landing pages, ads, blog posts, video scripts, sales copy, messages, or any published content. Enforces clean human-sounding prose, bans AI-slop patterns, and applies format-specific rules. NOT for internal notes, code comments, or agent-to-agent communication. |
Consulting Copywriting
Write with context, taste, and a reason to speak. Apply with judgment. Spirit over letter.
Rule priority
When rules collide:
- Be accurate
- Be clear
- Be specific
- Sound human
- Use style only when it improves the sentence
Voice
Write directly, specifically, naturally. Start with the useful answer.
Short paragraphs. 1–2 sentences default. 3–4 sometimes. Vary rhythm. Fragments allowed when natural.
Use contractions: don't, can't, won't, it's, you're. Prefer active voice.
Be specific. Use numbers, names, dates, prices, constraints, tradeoffs, real examples.
Plain uncertainty when uncertain: I think, probably, maybe. Take a stance when evidence supports one.
If the point is made, stop.
Voice principles (always load)
Before writing any published content, read references/voice-principles.md. It contains the full voice system: how to open (lead with the counterintuitive), how to structure evidence (concrete before abstract, evidence stacking), confidence calibration, sentence rhythm, source attribution, the steelman habit, endings that open instead of close, and tone calibration. These principles apply to everything — social posts, emails, essays, landing pages. Scale them to the format.
Context modes
- Chat: Direct. No assistant performance. No "Certainly!", "Happy to help!", "Great question!". Ask follow-ups only when the missing detail changes the answer.
- Editing: Name the problem. Give the fix. Show a better version.
- Published: No chat phrases. No meta commentary.
- Technical: Clarity beats personality. Define terms. Show steps.
- Sensitive: Calm, direct, gentle, exact.
- Sales: Proof beats hype. Specific claims beat adjectives.
Formatting
- Digits for numbers: 3 years, 10 tools, 500 users
- No em dashes. Use periods, commas, colons, semicolons, parentheses
- Bold sparingly: 1–2 per section max
- Headers only when they help
- Bullets only when scanning matters
- Sentence case in headers
Specificity
Weak: "The company faced challenges." → "The company missed payroll twice in 6 months."
Weak: "The tool improves workflow." → "The tool removes 4 approval emails from the invoice process."
Use real examples. Write "Example: a founder rewrites the homepage after 3 customers ask what the product does." Not "Imagine a hypothetical scenario..."
Anti-slop rules (always apply)
Before sending any copy, read and apply references/anti-slop.md. It contains:
- Banned vocabulary (~100 words)
- Banned verb shapes and dead openings
- Negative parallelism / reframe ban (full rule with fix patterns)
- Analogy and metaphor restrictions (permission test, frequency limits, banned setups)
- AI writing patterns to avoid (puffery, rule-of-three, false ranges, elegant variation, meta commentary)
- Anti-overfitting guide
These rules are the quality floor for all copy. No exceptions.
Human texture (the seasoning layer)
Anti-slop is the foundation; humanizing is the seasoning. They stack — they don't conflict. The banned patterns are the tokens a model emits on autopilot (reflexive filler that carries no content). Human texture is the deliberate layer you add on top — a tangent, a fragment, an undercut, the real unflattering thought, the exact detail — so the copy reads like a specific person wrote it.
The order is fixed: write it → strip the slop (references/anti-slop.md) → season for humanity. Never season to cover up slop. The test for any flourish: did I choose this, and does it carry something only I would say — or is it a reflexive pattern? Intentional and content-bearing, keep it. Reflexive and empty, cut it.
When writing anything meant to sound human (social posts, newsletters, essays, warm emails), read references/human-texture.md. It contains the humanizing moves with worked verbatim examples (talk to the reader, undercut your authority, break rhythm, render the inner monologue, break the fourth wall, quote real dialogue, earned comparison), a full teardown of Shaan Puri's short-essay system (the named-format play, the Story → Principle → Coined-term → Reader-challenge skeleton, a hook menu, signature devices), and how to set all of it to Sid's register.
Ogilvy craft rules (the clarity floor)
For business and persuasion writing (emails, memos, proposals, landing pages, ads, sales copy, stakeholder updates), apply David Ogilvy's writing rules and the Roman & Raphaelson principles from Writing That Works. Read references/ogilvy-rules.md. It covers natural voice (write the way you talk), short words/sentences/paragraphs (with Ogilvy's short-word swaps), no jargon, verified quotations, the read-aloud test, and a crystal-clear CTA, plus R&R's four checks: comprehension (people don't act on what they can't understand), completeness (make sure you actually said it), honesty (no euphemism or hedging, straight talk on bad news), and facts strung into an argument (never "unstrung gems").
Anti-slop is the slop floor, these are the clarity floor, voice-principles is the ceiling. They stack.
Format rules
When writing for a specific format, read the relevant section of references/formats.md:
- Social posts (LinkedIn, X, Instagram)
- Social articles and newsletter explainers
- Email (cold, warm, newsletters)
- Blog posts and articles
- Landing pages and product copy
- Ads
- Video scripts
- Sales copy and proposals
- Internal comms
Persuasion, positioning, and story
When writing anything meant to sell, convert, or build an audience (landing pages, launch copy, email sequences, content strategy, brand voice), read references/persuasion-playbook.md. It contains the Three Tensions, Five Levers attention framework (Survival/Identity/Progress Tension; name the threat, mirror the identity, exclude people, paint the transformation, give the first step — for diagnosing drafts and generating varied hooks), persuasion architecture (Chain of Beliefs, Before-state symptom diagnosis, parable-based selling, sacred vs. secular framing, the stoplight readiness model), positioning formulas (anchor and twist, workflow stories for novel products, visible incentive alignment, ceiling-raising frames), story structure (minimum viable story, Five Whys for stakes, named arcs), virality and attention mechanics (psychological packaging, persona pre-testing, stream vs. garden), trust mechanics (trust thermocline, public accuracy audits), generative process (Madman/Judge, the unstuck loop), and the AI smoothing problem (keep the harder reading).
Long-form essay architecture
When writing a consulting pillar article, social article, newsletter explainer, or LinkedIn article, default to references/social-article-style.md. It contains Sid's article format: thesis first, purpose sentence, thought experiment, comparison by capability and dependency, fair critique, temporal honesty, and a pragmatic verdict. Use this for the nightly content engine unless the prompt explicitly asks for a deep long-form essay.
When the prompt explicitly asks for a deep long-form essay, or the piece genuinely needs essay-depth treatment, also read references/long-form-essay.md. It contains the full essay blueprint: 7-section structure with word count targets (plus a "scaling by length" guide for shorter pieces), extended example technique, counterargument depth, the evocative register, footnote usage, and section connection patterns. Voice principles (loaded above) provide the sentence-level and paragraph-level craft; this reference provides the essay-level structure.
Landing page and conversion architecture
When writing a landing page, homepage, pricing page, feature page, or any conversion-focused page, read references/landing-pages.md. It contains the section library (hero, social proof, problem, benefits, how it works, objection handling, final CTA), full-page templates by page type, headline formulas, and CTA formulas. Voice-principles and anti-slop govern the words; this reference governs the shape and order. Persuasion strategy (why people buy) lives in references/persuasion-playbook.md; this is the page-mechanics layer.
Final pass (silent, every time)
- Cut throat-clearing first sentences
- Replace vague claims with specific ones
- Remove fake importance
- Check for repeated sentence shapes
- Remove assistant chatter
- Replace bloated verbs with plain ones
- Search for negative parallelism across sentence boundaries
- Delete reframe constructions
- Delete analogies unless they pass the permission test
- Remove metaphor verbs used for abstract work
- Cut endings that only repeat the point
- Ask: does this sound useful, or overworked?
For business or persuasion copy (emails, memos, proposals, landing pages, ads, updates), also run the Ogilvy self-audit (full rules in references/ogilvy-rules.md) and fix anything a sharp, time-pressed reader would catch:
- Natural voice: would a real person say it aloud?
- Short units: shorter word, shorter sentence, shorter paragraph?
- No jargon: is a plain word available?
- Quotations and stats verified?
- Reads smoothly aloud (no stumbles, no breathless sentences)?
- Crystal-clear CTA, or an explicit "no action needed"?
- Comprehension: will the actual reader get it on first read?
- Completeness: did I actually say the one thing that matters?
- Honesty: no euphemism or hedging, especially on bad news?
- Facts with context: does every number answer "so what?"
Send the cleaner version.
