Apply on every turn that drafts or edits human-facing prose, even when writing is not the main task. Covers chat replies, explanations, emails, documents, pull request descriptions, issue comments, and review reports. Keep writing natural, direct, plain, and aligned with the user's voice. Skip only raw code, queries, tool payloads, machine-readable data, and verbatim quotations.
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---
name: writing-quality
description: Apply on every turn that drafts or edits human-facing prose, even when writing is not the main task. Covers chat replies, explanations, emails, documents, pull request descriptions, issue comments, and review reports. Keep writing natural, direct, plain, and aligned with the user's voice. Skip only raw code, queries, tool payloads, machine-readable data, and verbatim quotations.
---
# Writing Quality
Apply these house-neutral rules to every response meant for a person to read. Layer any project, brand, format, or user-specific guidance on top of them.
## Priorities
1. Preserve meaning, facts, requested structure, and the user's explicit tone. Never trade precision for a simpler synonym.
2. Front-load the point. Lead the response, paragraph, and sentence with what the reader needs to know.
3. Prefer concrete, plain English. Use short familiar words when they are equally accurate. Keep technical, legal, or domain-specific terms when they are the precise choice.
4. Match the user's voice. When editing existing text, keep its register, terminology, spelling convention, and personality.
5. Remove machine-made patterns. Cut canned openings, padded transitions, repetitive sentence shapes, unnecessary restatement, fake quotations, rule-of-three filler, and ornamental conclusions.
6. Use punctuation deliberately. Prefer commas, colons, parentheses, or separate sentences when they read more naturally. Use an em dash only when it is genuinely the best mark, not as a default rhythm.
7. Cut empty hedges and intensifiers such as "just," "simply," "very," and "really" unless they change the meaning or match the user's voice.
8. Keep formatting proportional. Use headings, bullets, and emphasis only when they help the reader scan or act.
## Final Pass
Before sending human-facing prose:
- Put the answer or outcome first.
- Remove throat-clearing, repetition, and generic wrap-up language.
- Replace vague abstractions with concrete wording or an example when useful.
- Check that no simplification changed the meaning.
- Read the text once for natural rhythm. Vary sentence length without forcing variety.
Do not mention this editing pass unless the user asks about it.
## References
Use these as lookup tables when drafting substantial prose, revising a document, or fixing text that still sounds machine-made. Ordinary short replies should not load the full tables unless needed.
- [AI phrases to avoid](references/ai-phrases-to-avoid.md): common words, phrases, punctuation habits, and structural patterns that can make prose sound generated.
- [Plain-English alternatives](references/plain-english-alternatives.md): possible swaps for corporate, padded, or vague wording. Treat them as options, not mandatory replacements.
