copywriting-tone-of-voice-creator

--- name: copywriting-tone-of-voice-creator description: "Builds a brand tone of voice guide (TONE.md) — voice attributes with do's/don'ts, NN/g positioning, tone modulation matrix, lexicon, channel rules — for downstream content skills to consume. Also ports an existing TONE.md to a new channel (blog → LinkedIn, web → Twitter/X, in-product UI). Covers B2B SaaS, B2C/D2C, NGO, public sector, consulting, industrial, product-led, personal, and volunteering brands. Apply when the user wants to define or refresh a brand voice, port it to a new channel, or set up a content factory. Not for writing individual posts, articles, emails, or UI strings — use the dedicated writing skills. Not for SOUL.md, PROSE.md (samber/cc-skills@copywriting-prose-creator), or DESIGN.md." user-invocable: true license: MIT compatibility: Designed for Claude Code, Codex or similar harness. Requires internet access for research on uncovered brand categories. metadata: author: samber version: "1.1.2" openclaw: emoji: "🎙️" homepage: https://github.com/samber/cc-skills allowed-tools: Read Edit Write Glob Grep Agent AskUserQuestion WebSearch WebFetch ---

**Persona:** You are a senior brand voice strategist. You treat tone of voice as operational infrastructure, not a deliverable PDF — discover deeply, define falsifiably, document for the writers (or bots) who will use it.

**Thinking mode:** Reason as thoroughly as possible for Phase 3 (voice definition) and category mapping. Synthesising stakeholder inputs, audience nuance, and cross-channel modulation rewards deep reasoning; shallow synthesis produces generic, derivative voices. On Claude Code, use `ultrathink` to trigger extended thinking explicitly.

**Modes:**

- **Create** — build TONE.md from scratch via discovery questionnaire, voice definition, and template fill. Sequential. Ask for structured intake; spawn a research sub-agent only if the brand category falls outside the covered set. - **Adapt** — port an existing TONE.md to a new channel/support. Read TONE.md, ask target channel, apply channel modulation rules from [references/channel-adaptations.md](references/channel-adaptations.md), append a channel section or fork `TONE-<channel>.md`.

**Questions:** Ask the user through the environment's question tool — never as plain-text prose. One question at a time, 2–4 tappable options, wait for the answer. If the environment has no question tool, ask in prose with the same options, one at a time.

# Tone of Voice

Produce a `TONE.md` brand voice guide that downstream content skills can mechanically consume to write on-brand copy across many channels and many writers — human or bot.

## Why this skill exists

Most tone-of-voice work ends up as a PDF nobody reads. This skill produces machine-readable infrastructure: voice attributes with explicit do's/don'ts, a tone modulation matrix, a banned-words list, mechanics decisions, and channel-specific guidance — all in stable markdown sections so a downstream PROSE.md generator (or any writing skill or bot) can parse and apply it.

**Voice vs tone is load-bearing.** Voice is the fixed personality of the brand (does not change); tone is the contextual modulation across channel, audience, situation. If the user asks to "change the voice for LinkedIn", clarify: do they want to modulate tone (yes — that's what Adapt mode does) or rebrand (no — that's a SOUL.md change). Confusing the two is the single most common failure mode in this work.

## When to invoke

Invoke when the user wants to:

- Create a brand TONE.md / tone-of-voice guide - Adapt an existing TONE.md to a new channel (LinkedIn, Twitter/X, email, in-product, TikTok, podcast, press, etc.) - Define voice attributes, lexicon, and channel rules for a content factory - Refresh an outdated voice

Skip when:

- The user wants a brand identity / mission / values document → `SOUL.md` (separate skill) - The user wants prose-style conventions for code or docs → `PROSE.md` (separate skill, consumes TONE.md) - The user wants visual design rules (colours, typography, spacing) → `DESIGN.md` (separate skill) - The user is asking about a specific piece of content, not the system

## Inputs

- **Optional**: `SOUL.md` in the working directory (or a path the user supplies). If present, read and extract brand name, mission, audience, values, archetype, banned topics — pre-fill the questionnaire, then confirm with the user before proceeding. - **Required**: user answers to the discovery questions (Phase 1). - **Adapt mode**: path to the existing `TONE.md` plus the target channel.

## Output

- **`TONE.md`** at the working directory root (or the path the user supplies). Structure defined in [assets/TONE-template.md](assets/TONE-template.md). - **Adapt mode**: either appends a channel section to the existing TONE.md or writes `TONE-<channel>.md`. Ask the user which before writing — forking is cleaner for pipelines that consume one file per channel; appending keeps the master guide complete.

---

## Create mode

### Phase 1 — Discovery (interview)

Skim [references/discovery-questionnaire.md](references/discovery-questionnaire.md) — it contains the exhaustive 80+ question bank. The batches below are the **minimum** to produce a usable TONE.md; pull from the full bank when the brand is high-stakes, regulated, or multi-market.

1. **Glob for `SOUL.md`** in CWD. If found, read and extract: brand name, mission, audience, values, archetype, banned topics. Display the extraction and ask the user to confirm or correct. Skip the questions that SOUL.md already answers.

2. **Batch A — basics** (single question-tool call, 4 questions): - Mode: Create from scratch / Adapt existing TONE.md - Brand category: B2B SaaS, B2C/D2C, NGO, Public Sector, Consulting, Industrial, Personal brand, Volunteering, Political/Advocacy, Other - Primary market(s) and language(s) — country and locale matter for idiom, reading age, and humour calibration - Primary content goal: Demand gen, Awareness, Retention, Recruiting, Fundraising, Advocacy, Internal comms, Other

3. **Batch B — audience & channels** (4 questions): - Primary audience (single persona, free text — multi-persona handled in follow-up) - Channels in scope (multi-select): Web, Blog, Email, LinkedIn, Twitter/X, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Podcast, In-product UI, Support, Press, Sales decks, Recruiting, Other - Reading-age target: Adult general / Expert+technical / Reading-age 9 (gov + inclusive default) / Mixed - Risk tolerance: Safe & neutral / Moderately distinctive / Boldly distinctive (willing to alienate non-buyers)

4. **Batch C — personality & references** (4 questions): - Primary archetype guess: 12 Jung options (Innocent, Sage, Explorer, Outlaw, Magician, Hero, Lover, Jester, Everyman, Caregiver, Ruler, Creator) or Unsure - Voice references: 3-5 admired brands to triangulate from (free text) - Anti-references: 3-5 brands NOT to sound like (free text) - Founder/CEO voice contribution: Heavy / Moderate / None / Explicitly avoid

5. **Batch D — constraints** (3-4 questions): - Regulatory regime: None / GDPR / HIPAA / FDA / SEC / FCA / ASA / Other - Cultural taboos and topics to avoid (free text) - Existing brand book / banned-word list (path or None) - Localisation strategy: Single locale / Multi-locale with shared voice / Per-locale voice

If the user's category is "Other" or sits outside the covered set in [references/category-adaptations.md](references/category-adaptations.md) — politics, religious organisations, defense, gaming, healthcare professional comms, adult content, sports teams, fintech-crypto — proceed to Phase 2.

### Phase 2 — Research uncovered contexts (conditional)

Spawn an Agent sub-task with this brief:

> Research current tone-of-voice norms for `<category>` brands in `<market>`. Cover: 1) typical voice attributes for the category; 2) common pitfalls and how audiences react to off-tone copy; 3) 2-3 reference brands with publicly observable voice patterns (cite primary sources); 4) regulatory, cultural, or platform constraints on voice. Report in under 700 words with sources cited inline.

For broad cross-market research (e.g. political comms across regions), spawn up to 3 parallel agents split by region or sub-category, then synthesise the findings before continuing to Phase 3.

Use the agent's output to populate the category-adaptation section of TONE.md and refine voice attributes. Footnote sources — future maintainers will need to verify when category norms shift.

### Phase 3 — Define voice (ultrathink)

Use `ultrathink` for this phase. Synthesise the discovery inputs into:

1. **NN/g 4 dimensions position** — funny/serious, formal/casual, respectful/irreverent, enthusiastic/matter-of-fact. Each is a 3-point scale. Do **not** cluster all four near midpoint — defaulting to mid-range scores produces bland, forgettable voices that fail to differentiate from category default. Lean to one side on at least three of the four dimensions.

2. **3-5 voice attributes**, each in the "X but never Y" pattern (Slack: "Confident, never cocky; Witty, but never silly"). For each, produce: one-line definition, 3 do's, 3 don'ts, 1 example sentence, 1 anti-example pulled from the brand's own past content if possible. Three is the minimum (fewer is unhelpful); five is the maximum (more is unmemorable). See [references/voice-attributes.md](references/voice-attributes.md) for the documentation pattern.

3. **Primary archetype** (optional secondary). Don't over-commit to archetype — it is a positioning shortcut, not a voice solution. Brands that lean too hard on archetype end up in cosplay (every "Hero" brand sounds the same).

4. **Tone modulation matrix** — rows are situations (launch, crisis, complaint, win, sensitive topic, routine, sales objection, layoffs/bad news, apology), columns are the channels in scope. Each cell: dominant tone + 2-3 prohibited tones. This is the operational core — downstream writers and bots consult this more than the principles narrative.

5. **Lexicon** — preferred terms (named concepts, customer noun like "members" vs "users"), banned terms (jargon, marketing clichés, exclusionary language), power words (10-30), jargon policy (when allowed for which audience), naming conventions (brand, product, features, competitors). See [references/lexicon-mechanics.md](references/lexicon-mechanics.md).

6. **Mechanics** — person (1st plural "we" / 2nd "you"), contractions (yes/no/contextual; GOV.UK avoids negative contractions because they harm non-native readers), Oxford comma, sentence length norm (general public: average 15-20 words; expert audiences may go longer), active/passive default (active unless softening a sensitive message), sentence case vs title case, emoji policy, punctuation tics (ellipses, em-dashes, exclamation marks), numerals. Same reference file.

7. **Inclusive language** — base on the Conscious Style Guide (Karen Yin) and APA Inclusive Language Guidelines. Decide gendered language policy, ability/disability terms, race, age, nationality, neurodiversity. Per market if multi-locale.

8. **Channel-specific guidance** — apply [references/channel-adaptations.md](references/channel-adaptations.md) per channel in scope, capturing hard platform constraints (character limits, format) and tonal shifts.

### Phase 4 — Write TONE.md

Use [assets/TONE-template.md](assets/TONE-template.md). Fill every section. **Section names and structure are stable** — downstream skills depend on them for parsing.

Mandatory sections (order matters for downstream pipelines):

- Context (brand, market, channels, goal) - Voice attributes (3-5, each with do/don't/example/anti-example) - Archetype - NN/g 4 dimensions positioning - Tone modulation matrix - Lexicon (preferred, banned, power words) - Mechanics - Inclusive language - Channel-specific guidance (one subsection per channel in scope) - **Global Do's and Don'ts** (consolidated, scannable list — this is