| name | tov-guidelines |
| version | 1.0 |
| last_updated | "2026-05-19T00:00:00.000Z" |
| author | genesys-growth |
| description | Extract voice patterns from existing content (website, blog, social, sales-call transcripts) and codify into voice rules. Produces voice analysis + voice guidelines (rules per pattern + violation pattern + fix template). Writes to marketing/brand/brand-voice.md as the canonical voice rules every content skill reads. Triggers - "tone of voice", "brand voice", "voice guidelines", "TOV audit", "writing rules", "extract voice" |
| goal | Analyze existing content (website, blog, social, sales-call transcripts) and codify voice patterns into 5 voice rules with violation/fix patterns. |
| outcome | marketing/brand/brand-voice.md with 5 voice rules every content skill applies. |
| primitive | research |
| ontology_type | tone-of-voice |
| review_gate | 2 |
| inputs | {"required":[],"recommended":[]} |
| outputs | [{"type":"tone-of-voice","feeds_into":["content-strategy","landing-page-copy","product-messaging"]}] |
| owned_by_agent | researcher |
| mcps_used | ["exa"] |
| triggers | {"slash_commands":["/tov-guidelines"]} |
| status | draft |
tov-guidelines — Stage 1 + 2 research skill (PMM spine)
Analyzes existing content (your website, blog, recent LinkedIn posts, sales-call transcripts) and produces voice rules that downstream content skills apply.
When to use
- When onboarding a new content writer / contractor — they need codified voice rules to write in your voice
- When LinkedIn or blog output stops sounding like the founder / brand
- Quarterly refresh
When NOT to use
- For visual brand identity (use
/brand-kit — voice + visual are separate but both live in marketing/brand/)
- For one-off content checks against existing rules (write a custom gate skill that reads
brand-voice.md)
- For positioning or messaging (use
/positioning or /product-messaging)
How it works
- Inputs: source content (one or more of: website URL, blog URL, LinkedIn handle, sales-call transcripts, founder writing samples).
- Reads (Exa MCP for fresh data): the source content. Patterns extracted include: vocabulary preferences, sentence-length defaults, headline conventions, em-dash usage, list-vs-prose preference, contraction frequency, persona pronouns, signature opening / closing patterns.
- Produces a two-phase output:
- Phase 1 — Voice analysis (extracted patterns from source material with frequency scores): "uses em-dash with spaces 87% of the time across 30 LinkedIn posts; sentence case headings 100% of the time; banned-word violations 0 in last 10 posts"
- Phase 2 — Voice guidelines (codified rules every content skill applies):
- Rule N — {rule name}
- The rule: 1-sentence statement
- Why: 1-sentence justification
- Violation pattern: what breaking this looks like
- Fix template: how to fix
- Exception: when the rule doesn't apply
- Writes to
marketing/brand/brand-voice.md (overwrites prior canonical; git history preserves prior versions). Marks status: locked once approved.
Invoke
/tov-guidelines https://yourdomain.com + analyze my last 10 LinkedIn posts
Or open-ended:
/tov-guidelines extract voice from these sales-call transcripts: [paths]
Example output
See marketing/brand/brand-voice.md for the PulseAnalytics seed. Notice the 5 rules each have rule statement + why + violation pattern + fix template + exception. The 5 rules cluster into two themes (prose hygiene + claim integrity).
Dependencies
- Reads from: source content (URL or files — provided as input); optionally
marketing/icp/ICP.md (voice should match the ICP's vocabulary register)
- Reads via Exa MCP (optional): the source content if it lives on the web
- Writes to:
marketing/brand/brand-voice.md (canonical)
- Downstream readers: any content skill (LinkedIn, blog, newsletter, email),
/landing-page-copy, future gate skills
Customization
The 5-rule default in the PulseAnalytics example is operator-flavored. Yours may need more rules (large enterprise teams sometimes track 8-12) or fewer (founder voice often clusters into 3-4 rules). Use whatever rule count matches the patterns you can actually enforce.
Don't add a rule you can't enforce — every rule should map to a check a gate skill could run automatically. Vague rules ("be human") get ignored; specific rules ("no em-dashes without spaces") get enforced.
Where this fits in the Example 1 chain
Week 1: /tov-guidelines (parallel with competitor + ICP research) → voice rules locked
Week 2: /positioning + /product-messaging apply voice rules to output
Week 3+: every content / paid / outbound execution skill reads voice rules
Refresh cadence
Quarterly. Trigger sooner when the team finds a new buzzword pattern, customer flags off-brand phrasing, or a new persona is added (vocabulary may shift).
