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Use when writing prose humans will read—documentation, commit messages, error messages, explanations, reports, or UI text. Applies Strunk's timeless rules for clearer, stronger, more professional writing.
| name | writing-clearly-and-concisely |
| description | Use when writing prose humans will read—documentation, commit messages, error messages, explanations, reports, or UI text. Applies Strunk's timeless rules for clearer, stronger, more professional writing. |
Write with clarity and force. This skill covers what to do (Strunk) and what not to do (AI patterns).
Use this skill whenever you write prose for humans:
If you're writing sentences for a human to read, use this skill.
When context is tight:
Loading a single section (~1,000-4,500 tokens) instead of everything saves significant context.
William Strunk Jr.'s The Elements of Style (1918) teaches you to write clearly and cut ruthlessly.
Elementary Rules of Usage (Grammar/Punctuation):
Elementary Principles of Composition:
The rules above are summarized from Strunk's original text. For complete explanations with examples:
| Section | File | ~Tokens |
|---|---|---|
| Grammar, punctuation, comma rules | 02-elementary-rules-of-usage.md | 2,500 |
| Paragraph structure, active voice, concision | 03-elementary-principles-of-composition.md | 4,500 |
| Headings, quotations, formatting | 04-a-few-matters-of-form.md | 1,000 |
| Word choice, common errors | 05-words-and-expressions-commonly-misused.md | 4,000 |
Most tasks need only 03-elementary-principles-of-composition.md — it covers active voice, positive form, concrete language, and omitting needless words.
LLMs regress to statistical means, producing generic, puffy prose. Avoid:
Be specific, not grandiose. Say what it actually does.
For comprehensive research on why these patterns occur, see signs-of-ai-writing.md. Wikipedia editors developed this guide to detect AI-generated submissions — their patterns are well-documented and field-tested.
Writing for humans? Load the relevant section from elements-of-style/ and apply the rules. For most tasks, 03-elementary-principles-of-composition.md covers what matters most.
Analyze recent code changes via git history and extract software engineering lessons. Use when the user asks 'what is the lesson here?', 'what can I learn from this?', 'engineering takeaway', 'what did I just learn?', 'reflect on this code', or wants to extract principles from recent work.
Comprehensive guide for creating software diagrams using Mermaid syntax. Use when users need to create, visualize, or document software through diagrams including class diagrams (domain modeling, object-oriented design), sequence diagrams (application flows, API interactions, code execution), flowcharts (processes, algorithms, user journeys), entity relationship diagrams (database schemas), C4 architecture diagrams (system context, containers, components), state diagrams, git graphs, pie charts, gantt charts, or any other diagram type. Triggers include requests to "diagram", "visualize", "model", "map out", "show the flow", or when explaining system architecture, database design, code structure, or user/application flows.
Use when writing or improving README files. Not all READMEs are the same — provides templates and guidance matched to your audience and project type.
Manual-only skill for minimizing total codebase size. Only activate when explicitly requested by user. Measures success by final code amount, not effort. Bias toward deletion.
Create high-quality git commits: review/stage intended changes, split into logical commits, and write clear commit messages (including Conventional Commits). Use when the user asks to commit, craft a commit message, stage changes, or split work into multiple commits.
Creates detailed, sectionized implementation plans through research, stakeholder interviews, and multi-LLM review. Use when planning features that need thorough pre-implementation analysis.
