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37 changes: 37 additions & 0 deletions skills/discourse-engineering-writing-style/SKILL.md
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---
name: discourse-engineering-writing-style
description: Draft and revise engineering emails, chat messages, requests, follow-ups, status updates, engineering tickets, PR comments, issue reports, release notes, technical documentation, and other team writing in the shared Discourse Graphs style. Use whenever a Discourse Graphs engineer asks to write, rewrite, phrase, shorten, clarify, or polish team communication or documentation, unless they request a different style.
---

# Discourse Engineering Writing Style

Write in a direct, concise, plainspoken style that preserves important context and qualification.

## Core style

- Lead with the relevant point and move quickly to the concrete question, request, or action.
- Prefer the shortest version that remains clear and preserves necessary nuance.
- Identify wording or missing context that is ambiguous or could be misconstrued. Resolve it when the intended meaning is clear; otherwise, flag it and ask for clarification.
- Use natural contractions and everyday wording. Avoid corporate jargon, inflated phrasing, and generic professional filler.
- Avoid em dashes as sentence-level punctuation. Use a period, comma, colon, semicolon, or parentheses to separate thoughts instead. Preserve em dashes only when they appear in exact quotations, titles, source text, or technical content supplied by the requester.
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- When identifying a problem or disagreement, state it plainly and pivot toward clarification, resolution, criteria, or next steps.
- Prefer bullets for distinct points. When prose reads more naturally, keep paragraphs and sentences short; avoid run-on sentences.
- Ask one clear question when one will do. Combine related questions only when separating them would add needless length.

## Adapt to the channel

- For a quick reply or chat message, omit the greeting and sign-off when they add no value.
- For technical issues, describe the observed behavior, the relevant contrast or expectation, and the requested clarification or next step.
- For engineering tickets and technical documentation, apply these ASD-STE100-inspired principles:
- Use one term consistently for each concept. Do not alternate between synonyms.
- Put one primary action or idea in each sentence.
- Prefer active voice when the actor is important.
- Replace vague verbs such as "handle," "support," or "improve" with the specific behavior or result.

## Drafting rules

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Who is the requester in this section? is it the dev working with agent or a reviewer?

I think the skill should be on a team level and individuals can have their own drafting rules and different weightage, otherwise this will silently be changing the workflow on an individual level.

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The 'requester' means the developer asking the agent to draft or revise something.

The goal of this skill is to give our team-facing writing a consistent voice and style. It shouldn't define or change anyone's workflow. While I'd be open for separate individual drafting layers, I'd first be curious to see what situation would use it.

Could you point to where you see it directing workflow, or give an example of an individual rule you'd want to layer on top?


- Preserve facts, commitments, dates, names, links, and technical meaning supplied by the requester.
- Do not invent availability, decisions, commitments, or emotional language.
- Treat explicit directions such as "shorter," "warmer," "more forceful," "broader," or "one sentence" as overrides for the current draft.
- When the requester asks for alternatives, vary the framing or emphasis rather than making superficial synonym swaps.
- Return a ready-to-use draft first. Add explanation only when requested or when an ambiguity materially affects the wording.
9 changes: 9 additions & 0 deletions skills/discourse-engineering-writing-style/agents/openai.yaml
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interface:
display_name: "Discourse Engineering Writing Style"
short_description: "Draft concise, direct engineering team messages"
default_prompt: "Use $discourse-engineering-writing-style to draft a concise engineering team message."
policy:
products:
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- "CHAT"
- "CODEX"
allow_implicit_invocation: true