copywriting

Files (2)

• SKILL.md
• scorecard.md

SKILL.md (first lines)

# Copywriting

Write public copy that a stranger gets in two seconds, believes, and can act on.
This skill supplies **sentences**. README skills still own **structure**.

Compiled from: your business-config `direct-response-copy-engine` (Schwartz,
Masterson, Dry); Corey Haines conversion copy (clarity, one CTA, customer
language); Wikipedia [Signs of AI writing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signs_of_AI_writing)
via [../readme/anti-slop.md](../readme/anti-slop.md). Fifty frameworks stay out.

**Load before drafting:** [../readme/anti-slop.md](../readme/anti-slop.md) and
[scorecard.md](scorecard.md).

## When to apply

- Marketing: landing, homepage, ads, captions, CTAs, headlines, value lines
- Product: README pitch, first screen, technique blurbs, "why it exists"
- Audit: "this copy is weak", "make this human", "punch this up"

**Not this skill**

| Want | Use |
|------|-----|
| README section order, proof command, file maps | `product-readme` / `readable-readme` / `extensive-readme` |
| Long-form ads, video hooks, 2026 feed playbooks | Business repo: `direct-response-copy-engine` |
| Category / JTBD / positioning workshop | Business repo: `positioning-ideas`, `value-proposition` |
| Internal architecture prose with no reader | Skip. Write the fact. |

If positioning is mushy, say so in one line and write the smallest true claim.
Do not invent a category. Do not invent counts to sound like a studio landing.

## Hard lines

- **One idea, one reader, one promise, one action.** Extra benefits get cut or demoted.
- **Channel desire.** Start at the want they already have, not the product internals.
- **Never invent proof.** Numbers, customers, benches, "trusted by" come from the tree or the user. Missing proof → smaller true claim.
- **Concrete, falsifiable, nobody else.** Harry Dry's three tests on every important line. See [scorecard.md](scorecard.md).
- **Two seconds.** If it needs a decoder, rewrite.
- **Anti-slop pass.** LLM cadence is a ship blocker. Earned contrast (two checkable facts) is allowed. Empty upgrade ("it's not a tool, it's a revolution") is not. A narrow **category claim** with tree-true counts is allowed (see below).

## Surfaces

### README (default when a README skill is also loaded)

GitHub is a **category landing**, not a PAS sales letter, and not a teaching essay that hides the offer.

Pick the lead from the **product kind** (the README skill names the kind; copy fills the blanks from this tree only):

| Kind | Lead (in this order) |
|------|----------------------|
| Named product people clone and run with an AI host (studio, harness, lab, domain kernel, agent system) | **Category line** → **host conversion** → **countable proof** |
| Library / SDK / small CLI | **Promise + proof command** (what it is, then how to prove it) |

**Category line.** Under the product name: `The first {narrow category}.` The blank must be words a stranger already has (lab, studio, system) and specific enough a rival cannot paste it. "AI platform" is not a category. Coined class names (kernel, harness-as-product-class) stay out of this line. "World's first" is a positioning bet, not a census. Skip it on a crowded commodity (the 50th HTTP client).

**Host conversion.** First paragraph of the body: `Turn your {tool they already run} into a {complete job}.` Then: `Describe {input} in plain language. {Product} handles {named stages that exist in this tree}.` Do not restack the category sentence here.

**Countable proof.** Same paragraph or the next: only real inventory (packs, pipelines, workflows, tools, files, hosts). If you have two true counts, stop. Do not invent a third to complete a cadence.

**GitHub About.** Repo-settings blurb, not a second heading: `World's first {narrow category}. {counts}. Turn your {host} into a {job}.` The README heading keeps `The first`. The body keeps conversion + counts.

**Coined class name.** If the tree names a class the public does not already say (for example a kernel that sits under a general agentic harness), define it once, in one sentence, before you ask them to act: `{term} is what enables a general {harness} to have expertise in {this domain}.` Then instantiate: this product is that {term} for {the field}. Do not lead the page with the coinage.

Do **not** PAS-agitate ("tired of buggy X?"). Do **not** open with a chatbot insult. Nearby-wrong stays once, after the conversion, as a contract.

- Structure: the loaded README skill.
- Copy job: category / conversion / counts / invariant / technique lines pass the scorecard.
- Action: the prompt they paste, or the proof command. Not "Get Started" with nothing behind it.
- GitHub **About** blurb: world's first + counts + conversion. Do not paste that stack as a second heading in the README.

### Marketing page / landing

One message, one CTA. Match the lead to awareness (below). Headline = the one idea. Subhead adds the mechanism or the proof. CTA = verb + what they get. Category + conversion is fair here too when the product is a named studio/kernel.

### Ads, captions, hooks

First line earns the next moment. No windup. Point at a fact.

## Intake (do not skip)

Pull from the repo first. Ask only for gaps. Never fill a gap with a guess.

1. **Surface:** README, landing, ad, caption, other
2. **One reader:** one face, one situation
3. **Want they already have:** finish: "They already want ____. They do not believe ____ can get them there."
4. **Offer:** what it is, in one or two plain sentences
5. **Real proof:** commands, numbers, gold tests, named limits. Mark missing.
6. **Awareness:** unaware / problem-aware / solution-aware / product-aware / most-aware
7. **Sophistication:** have they heard this claim to death? If yes, lead with the how, not the promise.
8. **One action:** the next step
9. **Product kind:** named host-run product vs library (drives the README lead)

Thin proof means a quieter claim. It does not mean a louder adjective.

## Generate

1. Lock the **one idea**. Easy to understand, easy to believe, something a competitor cannot sign. Fail any check → work the idea, not the adjectives.
2. Pick the **lead** (Masterson + README kind):
   - Named host-run product: Category + conversion + counts
   - Library README: Promise + Offer (what it is, then the proof command)
   - Cold marketing (unaware/problem-aware): Problem-solution, story, or a checkable proclamation
3. Write the **hook**. Run Dry's tests.
4. Write the **body**. Each section proves the one idea. Features become: mechanism → what changes for the reader → limit or proof. First-screen copy uses **public category language**. Internal codes, harness letters, and ticket ids wait until Go deeper.
5. **One ask.**
6. Run [scorecard.md](scorecard.md) and the anti-slop **Pass**. Rewrite until both are clean.

Headline formulas that stay specific:

- `The first {narrow category}` / `World's first {narrow category}`
- `Turn your {host} into a {complete job}`
- `{outcome} without {named pain}`
- `The {category} for {named reader}`
- `{checkable fact}` (Volvo-style pointing)

Headline formulas that are slop unless the blanks are facts: "Unlock the power of", "The future of", "It's not just X".

## Audit

1. State the one idea in one sentence. If you cannot, that is finding #1.

From Vinayak-RZ/ARC, Apache-2.0.

More from Vinayak-RZ/ARC