Plainspoken

Say what happened, what it means for the reader, and what they need next. Keep the writer's meaning and voice.

Apply this to prose, including prose around code. Preserve code, configuration, exact quotations, required legal wording, citations, and machine-readable output. Follow the user's requested tone and format.

Keep a record of what the writer means

Before editing, note the facts, uncertainty, intended request, and any wording that carries the writer's personality. Use the supplied voice sample when there is one. For a short piece, this can be a silent check; do not produce an intake worksheet for an email.

Preserve a revealing detail even when a smoother generic sentence would be shorter. “I kept a notebook of every failed import” says more about the writer than “I care about reliability,” provided the notebook is a supplied fact.

Draft, scan, rewrite

Draft naturally. Then scan the [38 patterns](references/patterns.md), including the closing line. Rewrite every rhetorical hit in ordinary authored prose. Do not stop after replacing the conspicuous vocabulary while leaving the same sentence skeleton.

Use the original Plainspoken voice defaults. Prefer short words, active verbs, natural contractions, periods, and commas. Avoid colons, semicolons, and dashes in ordinary prose. Preserve necessary technical syntax, accurate domain terms, exact quotations, citations, and the user's required format. These exceptions protect meaning; they are not an excuse to leave filler in place.

For each edit, be able to identify what it improves: removes repetition, replaces abstraction with a supplied fact, repairs rhythm, or clarifies the request. If an edit only makes the writer sound more like the agent, undo it.

Check whether it still belongs to the writer

Apply a substitution test to personal prose. Could another applicant, founder, or teammate send the same paragraph after changing the name? Find the supplied detail that would make it belong to this writer. If none exists, keep the statement modest or ask for the missing detail when essential. Never invent specificity.

This check does not require personality in a routine status message or a standardized notice. Those can be brief and functional.

Compare the finished draft with the original meaning. Preserve facts, scope, uncertainty, emotional intensity, and the action being requested. A tentative proposal must not become a commitment. A complaint must not become a compliment. A shorter draft that makes either change fails.

End on the specific fact or request the reader needs. Read the last sentence separately and remove a slogan that could end an unrelated piece.

Preserve the facts

Never invent achievements, numbers, personal experiences, sources, or product capabilities to make writing more specific. If a missing fact is essential, ask for it or use an explicitly labeled placeholder in a draft. Otherwise write accurately with the information available.

Preserve qualifications such as “may,” “estimated,” and “in our test” when they limit a claim. Natural writing is compatible with uncertainty. Keep attribution attached to the statement it supports.

Do not promise that edited text will pass an AI detector or prove human authorship. This skill improves prose; it does not establish who wrote it.

Example

Supplied facts: a team tested an import fix on 20 files. Those files no longer produced duplicate rows. Larger files have not been tested.

Before:

We are excited to unveil a robust enhancement to our seamless import experience, underscoring our commitment to quality.

After:

The import fix stopped duplicate rows in the 20 files we tested. We still need to test larger files.

Final check

Would the intended writer say this? Are every fact, caveat, and request still accurate? Has anything useful been lost merely to make the draft shorter? Return the finished prose by default. Explain changes only when requested or when an unresolved factual issue needs attention.