About writing-for-humans
A writing skill that applies Orwell’s six rules to prose and ASD-STE100 when readers need to act on the text. It guides writers toward concise, direct language while preserving established domain vocabulary.
Key features
- 01Applies Orwell’s six writing rules
- 02Uses ASD-STE100 for actionable text
- 03Cuts ideas that add no value
- 04Describes current behavior directly
- 05Preserves established domain terms
Use cases
- 01Editing prose for concision
- 02Writing instructions readers must follow
Install
Copy the command and run it in a terminal.
npx skills add https:/After installing, type/writing-for-humansin Claude Code to confirm it loaded.
Details
From the project READMEApply Orwell's six rules from Politics and the English Language to all prose. When the reader will act on the text rather than weigh its reasoning, also follow ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English.
Draft as a careful human writer would:
- Cut at the level of ideas, not just words: a sentence earns its place by changing what the reader knows or does, and completeness is not a reason to keep one.
- Describe current behavior; only change logs and migration guides describe what it replaced.
- Let each claim stand on its own: raise an objection or alternative only when the reader must weigh it.
- Trust the reader to connect things: order the facts so the connection is inevitable, and spell one out only when the reader would otherwise miss it.
- State the point instead of announcing it, and end on the last useful fact.
- Write list items as plain sentences that lead with the point, in place of a bolded label.
- Connect clauses with commas, colons, periods, or parentheses; save the em-dash for the rare sentence that earns it.
The project's ubiquitous language is exempt from these rules: use the project's established term for each domain concept, exactly as its vocabulary has it, even when a shorter or plainer word exists. The rules govern the sentences around those terms.