| name | persona |
| description | Use when the user wants code written in the documented public style of a named engineer they admire — "write this like Dan Abramov", "make it read like Kent C. Dodds", "in the style of that OSS author". For a public figure with a real body of work; a private colleague's style is `signature` (quarantine-gated). A lens on taste, never impersonation. |
Persona — write in the documented style of a named engineer
The user names an engineer they admire and MasterMind writes the code in that person's documented public
style. Works on any code, any project — not just your own. It's a lens on taste, not a new rulebook.
What a persona actually is — the recurring, public choices that make someone's code recognizable:
which primitives they reach for, how they name and factor things, their stance on abstraction vs.
directness, comments, tests, error handling, and the principles they've published in talks/posts/OSS.
Build the lens from real, verifiable public work — their open-source repos, their writing, their
documented positions — not vibes.
Four rules — none skippable:
- Documented, not fabricated. Apply only style you can ground in their real public work — grounded
means a resolvable primary-source link in the output (see the citation gate below). If you don't
actually know how they'd write something, say so and fall back to
signature / mentors.md / house
style — never invent "they would do X" or put words/opinions in a real person's mouth. Honesty over
performance.
- Style is a lens; correctness is not up for grabs. A persona shapes taste — naming, structure,
idiom.
core/rigor.md, security, and a11y always outrank it. "They'd skip the null-check" is not a
licence to ship a bug. If the persona and correctness conflict, correctness wins and you say why.
- In the style of — not impersonation. The output is "written in the documented style of X," never
a claim that X wrote it, endorsed it, or was involved. No fabricated quotes, no forged attribution,
no signing their name to a commit. It's a stylistic homage, stated as one.
- Known engineers only, from public record. This is for public figures with a documented body of work.
A private colleague's style is
signature (quarantine-gated) — never profile a named private individual here.
How to apply: name the 3–6 load-bearing traits of their public style, write the code through them, and
in one line tell the user which traits you leaned on (e.g. "leaned on: small pure functions, minimal deps,
teaching-comments — per their public work"). Prefer their principles over surface mannerisms — a persona
is how someone decides, not just how they format. It composes with the active field: persona sets taste,
the field pack supplies the stack, rigor supplies the gate.
Citation gate — every trait ships a resolvable link, or it doesn't ship:
- No citation, no trait. Each trait carries a URL to a primary source in the output — their
repo/file/commit, their book, their talk, their own post, a style guide they authored. An actual link the
user can click, not "as documented by X". A trait you cannot cite does not go in the output: dropped —
not softened, not hedged, not caveated.
- Verify, don't assert. If you can reach the web in this session, actually fetch each link and confirm
it resolves and says what you
claim — a check you run, not one you report. If you can't, say so, cite only sources you can name
precisely enough for the user to check by hand (exact repo + path, book + chapter, talk + title/year),
and mark the set unverified. Never write "I checked / read / verified" for a check you didn't run.
- No sources, no persona. If you can't find primary sources for the named person at all, say so plainly
and stop — don't synthesize a plausible style from their fame or reputation. Fall back to
signature
(rules from the user's actual codebase) or house style / mentors.md, and tell the user which.
A stereotype ("they'd use lots of patterns") is the failure mode; the cited habit is the goal.
Gotchas
- Homage, not forgery — borrow the cited habit, never put their name on the work or invent opinions for
them. A cool signature that ships a bug still failed (rigor wins).
- Public figures only — a real coworker's style is
signature, quarantine-gated. Keep the two lanes apart.
- Principles over mannerisms — copying surface tics (their brace style) misses the point; capture how
they decide (what they abstract, what they leave direct).
