For agents

A skill should change the choices in the finished text. Loading one is the beginning of the work.

Use this page to choose a skill, understand its limits and check that the prose carries the intended voice without acquiring new facts.

The skills

Install from Fontlab/vexy-fontlab-writing-skills with npx skills add Fontlab/vexy-fontlab-writing-skills. Each skill includes its own rules and references; it requires no sibling skill or external repository. Use current project evidence when the task supplies it.

Choose fontlab-marketing, fontlab-technical or fontlab-neutral for a single register. Use fontlab-write for mixed drafting and fontlab-rewrite for mixed editing. fontlab-tldr condenses a supplied text while preserving its voice and structure through exactly three private rounds, with a target of 20% of the original length.

fontlab-terminology includes a portable glossary snapshot in references/terms.md. The snapshot records naming scope and status, not current availability. fontlab-localization includes rules and examples; live translation tables do not travel with it. fontlab-partners addresses partner content and its commercial constraints.

What they share

Every skill carries a house-rules block copied from tools/house-rules.md by tools/scripts/sync_shared.py in the skills repository. Change that source and run the script. Editing a generated copy creates drift at the next sync.

The shared rules govern factual scope, protected text, naming, register, voice and review. The guide's house voice explains the desired effect: precise observation, connected thought, varied pace and room for dry wit where the surface permits it.

How an agent should behave

1. Establish the audience, task, source facts and output contract. Distinguish a verified fact from a claim inherited from a draft.
2. Choose the register per passage and read the relevant skill and its applicable examples.
3. Draft or edit at the requested depth. Use a supported detail to make the situation visible. Let the sentence develop the relationship before shortening it.
4. Keep literal labels, quotations, code, identifiers and commercial terms intact. Mark unresolved facts precisely in working drafts.
5. Review the complete result against the sources, then against the reader's task.

When a passage needs more character, improve the observation first. A sharper noun, a useful aside or a well-placed consequence can do more than added adjectives. An instruction may already have all the character it needs.

When editing, retain an effective source voice. Do not add an invented narrator, personal experience, motive or customer reaction. For TLDR, source voice governs the condensation; do not decorate a plain source to make it resemble another register.

Work in two passes

The first pass makes the piece worth reading. Set the opening, develop the paragraphs and choose where the thought lands. Preserve useful irregularities instead of polishing everything to the same cadence.

The second checks the effect of following the text. Would a reader perform the intended action, understand the actual limitation or assess the offer accurately? Remove an analogy's false implication, restore a lost qualification and move a warning before the action.

For a changed skill, try a fresh source packet as well as its bundled examples. Include a plain warning or limitation where expressive rewriting would be harmful. Compare each output claim with the packet and assess the voice by the choices actually made. Repeating a skill's example demonstrates recall, not transfer to another task.

Keep these checks private when the output contract asks for text only. A review report is not an extra deliverable to attach by habit.

How a person overrides them

A direct user instruction takes precedence over a supplied voice sample, which takes precedence over a house default. Adapt punctuation, tone and structure accordingly. Break a default when it would make the writing worse.

A request for a more dramatic style does not establish a more dramatic fact. Keep inventions visibly fictional and unsupported claims unresolved until evidence is available.

Checks

In the skills repository:

bash tools/scripts/check_all.sh
python3 tools/scripts/measure_voice.py FILE --register neutral

The first checks shared-rule synchronization, paths and unit tests. The second reports approximate counts and review signals. Stored ranges are comparison data; below 40 words the tool omits range comparisons.

Read a flagged passage in context. Repeated fragments might be an effective acceleration or a string of disconnected claims. A count cannot make that judgment or determine authorship.

Here, ./build.sh check checks publication boundaries, terminology, existing fixture evidence and unit tests. A full build also checks generated links and assets. Add direct editorial trials for changed instructions; passing a build does not show that a skill produces the desired prose.

Adding a skill

Create fontlab-<name>/SKILL.md in the skills repository, put its task-specific instructions above the shared-block markers and run the sync script. Include worked examples in references/moves.md.

Give each example a source packet, a weak version, a revision and an explanation of the decision. Include a case where restraint is the right choice. The agent needs to learn when a technique helps and when to leave it out.