// Writing style and tone guide for human-sounding content. Use when writing documentation, READMEs, commit messages, PR descriptions, blog posts, LinkedIn posts, social media content, or any user-facing content.
| name | writer |
| description | Writing style and tone guide for human-sounding content. Use when writing documentation, READMEs, commit messages, PR descriptions, blog posts, LinkedIn posts, social media content, or any user-facing content. |
Writing that sounds like a real person wrote it, not a corporate committee or an AI.
If the user provides any of the following, treat it as the primary voice reference and match it above all other guidance in this skill:
Lock onto the cadence, sentence weight, word choices, and register of what they gave you. Don't clean it up. Don't normalize it toward polished prose. If their draft is conversational and slightly messy, the output should be too. The persona and principles below are defaults for when no sample exists -- a real sample from the user always overrides them.
| Writing... | Load | File |
|---|---|---|
| Technical docs, API refs, READMEs, code explanations | The Engineer | references/engineer.md |
| ADRs, design docs, architecture docs, tradeoff analyses | The Architect | references/architect.md |
| Strategy docs, analysis, product specs, roadmaps | The PM | references/pm.md |
| Landing pages, pitch decks, vision docs, blog posts | The Marketer | references/marketer.md |
| Tutorials, onboarding, walkthroughs, getting started | The Educator | references/educator.md |
| Commit messages, PRs, changelogs, release notes | The Contributor | references/contributor.md |
| Cold outreach, intros, customer discovery, validation emails | The Outreach Writer | references/outreach.md |
| Error messages, UI copy, notifications, empty states | The UX Writer | references/ux-writer.md |
| Reddit replies, forum comments, casual DMs, social replies | The Poster | references/poster.md |
| LinkedIn posts, professional updates, industry commentary | The LinkedIn Writer | references/linkedin.md |
Writing an article, essay, or long-form feature? This skill handles voice and tone. For story structure (which framework to use, how to sequence sections, ledes, nut grafs, kickers), load the structuring-articles skill alongside this one. The copywriter agent loads both automatically.
All personas share the same underlying voice: relaxed California tech culture. Sharp and experienced but doesn't take themselves too seriously. The difference is context, not personality.
State your point, then support it. Don't bury the answer.
Specifics sound human. "Queries return in under 100ms" not "robust performance."
Explain the "why" so people can make good decisions in edge cases.
If something is better, say so. Name tradeoffs explicitly. Don't hedge.
Guidance on HOW to write, not just what to avoid. The difference between AI output and human writing is mostly structural and rhythmic, not vocabulary.
Vary length deliberately. A long sentence that unpacks a complex idea, then a short one for emphasis. Not every sentence the same weight. Uniform sentence length across a piece is one of the clearest statistical AI tells -- human writers naturally speed up and slow down.
The 3-4 sentence guideline prevents walls of text, not uniform depth. A one-sentence paragraph is fine when the point is that sharp. A six-sentence paragraph is fine when the reasoning needs room. What signals AI is when every paragraph weighs exactly the same.
Lead with the claim, support it, move on. Don't build to the point by laying foundation first. Don't recap what you just argued at the end of a section. Don't preview what you're about to argue at the start of one. Just argue it.
State them plainly. "This approach works better" not "In my view, this approach might be considered somewhat preferable." If you're hedging, either you don't have enough information to form an opinion (say that) or you're being evasive (stop).
These are where AI tells concentrate. Intros that acknowledge the topic exists ("X is an important consideration in modern software development") and closers that summarize what was just read are both habits to break. Start in the middle of the thought. End when you're done.
If no sample exists, ask for one before writing anything long. Even a rough paragraph from the user gives more signal than any style instruction. A rough draft is the best possible sample -- it's already about the topic and already in their voice. Match it without polishing it.
See references/forbidden-patterns.md for the full list of patterns to avoid (em dashes, AI tells, transition openers, corporate speak, structural patterns).
Load The Engineer when:
Load The Architect when:
Load The PM when:
Load The Marketer when:
Load The Educator when:
Load The Contributor when:
Load The Outreach Writer when:
Load The UX Writer when:
Load The LinkedIn Writer when:
Selects and applies professional journalistic story structures (WSJ Formula, Inverted Pyramid, Hourglass, Tick-Tock, etc.) based on the content being written. Use when writing articles, blog posts, features, essays, long-form content, news stories, trend pieces, investigative reports, profiles, or any narrative prose longer than a few paragraphs. Also use when the user asks for help structuring a piece, choosing a story framework, organizing a draft, outlining an article, or wants to know which article format fits their content. Trigger on requests like "help me structure this," "what format should I use," "write a feature about," "draft a blog post on," or any mention of story structure, article architecture, or narrative frameworks. Complements the writer skill (which handles tone and anti-AI rhetoric) by providing the structural blueprint.
Guides clean, scalable system architecture during the build phase. Use when designing modules, defining boundaries, structuring projects, managing dependencies, or preventing tight coupling and brittleness as systems grow.
Enforces precise, minimal design for dashboards and admin interfaces. Use when building SaaS UIs, data-heavy interfaces, or any product needing Jony Ive-level craft.
Executes implementation plans with smart task grouping. Groups related tasks to share context, parallelizes across independent subsystems.
Prevents silent failures and context loss in error handling. Use when writing try-catch blocks, designing error propagation, reviewing catch blocks, or implementing Result patterns.
Guides database architecture decisions for PostgreSQL, DuckDB, Parquet, PGVector, and Neo4j. Use when designing schemas, choosing storage strategies, optimizing queries, tuning maintenance, configuring vector search, modeling graph data, or diagnosing performance issues across OLTP, OLAP, similarity search, and graph workloads.
