| name | blog-brand |
| description | Establish durable brand and voice context for cross-skill consumption. Generates BRAND.md (audience, positioning, do/don't editorial rules, taboo phrases, competitor differentiation) and VOICE.md (existing persona JSON re-expressed as readable prose), both written to the project root. When present, all blog sub-skills auto-load these files before writing or reviewing. Pairs with blog-persona, which manages the structured persona JSON. Use when user says "blog brand", "create brand context", "brand voice doc", "BRAND.md", "VOICE.md", "establish editorial brand", "brand guidelines for blog".
|
| user-invokable | true |
| argument-hint | [init|show|update] |
Blog Brand: Durable Editorial Context
Generates two project-root files that every blog sub-skill auto-loads when present:
BRAND.md: who the audience is, what the brand stands for, what to never sayVOICE.md: how the brand sounds, structurally and lexically
These provide persistent editorial context that survives across sessions and propagates to every command.
Why this exists
Today, persona JSON (from blog-persona) is loaded by some skills and not others. Topic-cluster context lives inside cluster vaults. Competitor positioning lives nowhere. Each blog command re-derives "what is the brand" from whatever context it has.
BRAND.md and VOICE.md fix this: one canonical source, loaded by the blog orchestrator at the start of every command.
When neither file exists, behavior is unchanged. Backward compatible.
Commands
| Command | Purpose |
|---|
/blog brand init | Interactive interview, writes BRAND.md and VOICE.md to project root |
/blog brand show | Display current contents (or report missing) |
/blog brand update | Re-run the interview with current values as defaults |
Init Workflow
Run the 5-step interactive interview. Ask each step, wait for response, then proceed. If blog-persona JSON already exists, pre-fill voice answers from it.
Step 1: Audience
Ask:
- Primary audience role (e.g. "head of marketing at a 50-500 person B2B SaaS")
- Secondary audience (optional)
- Reader expertise level: beginner / intermediate / advanced / mixed
- Problems the reader is actively trying to solve (3 to 5 bullets)
- Common misconceptions the audience holds (used to anchor information gain)
Step 2: Positioning
Ask:
- One-sentence brand mission (what the brand helps people do)
- Distinctive point of view (the contrarian or non-obvious belief that shapes content)
- What this brand is NOT (anti-positioning, what to never be confused with)
- Top 3 direct competitors with the one-line differentiator vs each
Step 3: Editorial rules
Ask:
- Do list (3 to 7 things the blog will always do; e.g. "cite primary sources only," "name the practitioner not the product")
- Don't list (3 to 7 things the blog will never do; e.g. "no clickbait titles," "no listicle filler")
- Taboo phrases (specific words or phrases this brand never uses; complements but is separate from the AI-detection blocklist)
- Required disclosures (e.g. affiliate disclosure, AI-content disclosure, conflict-of-interest patterns)
Step 4: Topic boundaries
Ask:
- Topics fully in scope (core content pillars)
- Topics partially in scope (adjacent; covered only with original angle)
- Topics out of scope (will not cover; redirect to partner content)
- Recurring formats / column names if any (e.g. "Monthly Field Notes," "Reader Q&A")
Step 5: Voice (auto-fill from blog-persona if present)
Ask:
- Pronoun stance: first-person (we / I), second-person (you), third-person (the team), or mixed
- Acceptable contractions: full / partial / none
- Sentence ceiling: max words per sentence as a hard cap
- Paragraph ceiling: max words per paragraph (default 150)
- Headline patterns to favor: numbered / question / promise / statement
- Headline patterns to avoid: any patterns banned for this brand
- Summary box label: from blog-persona, or pick one
Output Files
BRAND.md template
Write to project root as:
# Brand Context
> This file is auto-loaded by all blog sub-skills. Last updated: YYYY-MM-DD.
## Audience
- **Primary**: [role + context]
- **Secondary**: [if any]
- **Expertise**: [level]
- **Active problems**:
- [problem 1]
- [problem 2]
- [problem 3]
- **Common misconceptions**:
- [misconception 1]
- [misconception 2]
## Positioning
- **Mission**: [one sentence]
- **Distinctive POV**: [contrarian or non-obvious belief]
- **What we are NOT**: [anti-positioning]
- **Competitors**:
- [Competitor A]: [our one-line differentiator]
- [Competitor B]: [our one-line differentiator]
- [Competitor C]: [our one-line differentiator]
## Editorial Rules
### Always do
- [rule 1]
- [rule 2]
- [rule 3]
### Never do
- [rule 1]
- [rule 2]
- [rule 3]
### Taboo phrases
- [phrase 1]
- [phrase 2]
### Required disclosures
- [disclosure rule]
## Topic Scope
- **In scope**: [pillars]
- : [adjacent topics]
: [topics to refuse]
: [if any]
VOICE.md template
Write to project root as:
# Voice Context
> This file is auto-loaded by all blog sub-skills. Last updated: YYYY-MM-DD.
## Pronoun stance
[first-person / second-person / third-person / mixed]
## Lexical rules
- **Contractions**: [full / partial / none]
- **Sentence ceiling**: [N words max]
- **Paragraph ceiling**: [N words max, default 150]
- **Summary label**: [Key Takeaways / TL;DR / etc.]
## Headline patterns
- **Favor**: [list]
- **Avoid**: [list]
## Voice fingerprint (from blog-persona)
- Funny vs serious: [0.0 to 1.0]
- Formal vs casual: [0.0 to 1.0]
- Respectful vs irreverent: [0.0 to 1.0]
- Enthusiastic vs matter-of-fact: [0.0 to 1.0]
## Readability target
- Audience tier: [consumer / professional / technical]
- Flesch Grade: [range]
- Flesch Ease: [range]
## Reference samples
- [URL 1] (extracted patterns: [summary])
- [URL 2] (extracted patterns: [summary])
Show Workflow
- Check for
BRAND.md and VOICE.md at project root.
- If both exist, print a summary table (key sections only) and the file paths.
- If one or both are missing, print which are missing and suggest
/blog brand init.
Update Workflow
Same as Init, but pre-fills every answer with the current value. The user can press enter to accept or type a new value. After collecting all answers, overwrite both files with the new contents and update the Last updated: line.
Integration with the blog orchestrator
When /blog write, /blog rewrite, /blog brief, /blog outline, /blog calendar, or /blog strategy runs, the orchestrator (skills/blog/SKILL.md) checks for BRAND.md and VOICE.md at the project root. If present, the contents are injected into the system prompt for downstream agents (blog-researcher, blog-writer, blog-seo, blog-reviewer).
If absent, behavior is unchanged. The orchestrator does not prompt the user to create them; they are opt-in context.
Relationship to blog-persona
| Concern | blog-persona | blog-brand |
|---|
| Structured persona JSON for programmatic use | Yes | No |
| Readable brand context for cross-skill prompts | No | Yes |
| Audience and positioning | No | Yes |
| Taboo phrases and editorial don'ts | Partial (don't list) | Full (taboo + disclosures + scope) |
| Competitor differentiation | No | Yes |
| Topic boundaries | No | Yes |
| Voice fingerprint (tone sliders) | Yes (canonical) | Mirror (read-only) |
blog-brand does not replace blog-persona; it consumes it. The persona JSON remains the source of truth for tone dimensions, sentence-length distribution, and contraction frequency. VOICE.md mirrors the readable parts so prompts are self-contained.
If no persona exists when /blog brand init runs, the voice questions still produce a VOICE.md. Users who want programmatic enforcement can run /blog persona create after.
Error Handling
- Project root unclear: ask the user where to write the files. Default is the current working directory.
- Files already exist on init: ask whether to overwrite or run update instead.
- Persona referenced but missing: ask whether to leave the persona reference blank or create one.
- Reader provides minimal answers: prompt for at least 2 audience bullets and 3 editorial rules; refuse to write skeletons.
