From duet
Apply Strunk's writing rules to prose—documentation, commits, error messages, UI text. Clearer, stronger, more professional. Also handles sharpening and tightening drafts by subtraction.
npx claudepluginhub tslateman/claude-plugins --plugin duetThis skill uses the workspace's default tool permissions.
William Strunk Jr.'s _The Elements of Style_ (1918) teaches you to write clearly and cut ruthlessly.
Guides strict Test-Driven Development (TDD): write failing tests first for features, bugfixes, refactors before any production code. Enforces red-green-refactor cycle.
Guides systematic root cause investigation for bugs, test failures, unexpected behavior, performance issues, and build failures before proposing fixes.
Guides A/B test setup with mandatory gates for hypothesis validation, metrics definition, sample size calculation, and execution readiness checks.
William Strunk Jr.'s The Elements of Style (1918) teaches you to write clearly and cut ruthlessly.
WARNING: references/elements-of-style.md consumes ~12,000 tokens. Read it only when writing or editing prose.
Use this skill whenever you write prose for humans:
If you're writing sentences for a human to read, use this skill.
When context is tight:
references/elements-of-style.mdAlphabetical reference for usage questions
Sharpening a draft means removing everything that does not serve the core point. Not rewriting. Not adding "voice." Cutting.
Cut Structure, Keep Substance. Drafts bloat through structure, not through ideas. Headers, transitions, framing paragraphs, and setup sentences add length without adding meaning. Cut them first. The substance survives.
Catch LLM-isms. AI-generated text carries recognizable signatures: contrastive pivots, filler authority phrases, uniform tone, and predictable word choices. These patterns weaken prose even when the underlying argument is strong. Identify them and cut or rewrite.
Substance Over Voice for High-Stakes Prose. "Humanizing" prompts add colloquialisms and personality but dilute the core argument. For leadership pitches, technical proposals, and executive communication, fluff hurts more than polish helps. Prioritize the argument.
Trust the Author's Cuts. A single note from the author ("cut 'The stakes are real'") often does more than an elaborate rewriting pass. The author knows what matters. When they cut, follow the instinct rather than restoring through rewording.
Recognizable AI writing patterns and their fixes:
| Pattern | Example | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Contrastive pivot | "That's not a trend piece -- that's the stakes" | State what it is. Skip the negation setup. |
| Needless stakes declaration | "The stakes are real." | Delete it. If the argument is strong, it shows. |
| Uniform sentence rhythm | Every paragraph same length, same cadence | Vary length. Let some sentences punch. |
| Hedged authority | "It's worth noting that..." | Drop the hedge. State the point. |
| Formulaic structure | Intro paragraph, three body sections, summary | Start with the strongest point. Cut the frame. |
| Predictable word choices | Always the most probable next word | Choose the specific word, not the expected one. |
| Throat-clearing openers | "When we think about X, we need to consider..." | Delete and start at the verb. |
Can you remove this sentence without losing meaning? Remove it.
Writing for humans? Read references/elements-of-style.md and apply the rules. Low on tokens? Dispatch a subagent to copyedit with the guide.
/naming — Strunk's Rule 12 applies identically to code names/review — Write review comments clearly using these rulesskills/FRAMEWORKS.md — Full framework indexRECIPE.md — Agent recipe for parallel sharpening (3 workers)