writewell

Version 1.5.0. Writing pipeline that strips AI patterns, enforces language discipline, removes clutter, runs a quality check, and optionally applies a personal voice.

What it does

1. Strips AI patterns — significance inflation, promotional language, filler, hedging, chatbot artifacts
2. Applies your voice — when a personal voice profile is present, rewrites in that style
3. Enforces language discipline — dead metaphors, padded verbs, prefer short words, active voice
4. Removes clutter — filler cuts and readability across three revision passes
5. Checks quality — natural voice, clear purpose, brevity

Works without a profile using general principles. Onboard builds a personal voice profile from your posts.

Skills

Onboard lives at skills/onboard/SKILL.md next to skills/writewell/SKILL.md. No host needs an extra skills path.

Install

Shared marketplace steps for Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor / Grok Bot: skillpack install.

Then install this plugin only:

# Claude Code
/plugin install writewell@skillpack

# Codex (after marketplace add)
codex plugin add writewell@skillpack

# Cursor / Grok Bot
# Import https://github.com/p3ob7o/skillpack, then install writewell

Usage

Give it text to rewrite:

[paste your draft here]

Personalize

Run onboard with either:

• Individual post URLs — links to specific articles or posts
• A blog homepage + count — homepage URL and how many recent posts to analyze

Onboard reads the samples, distills style across dimensions (sentence structure, tone, vocabulary, openings, closings, formatting, rhetorical devices), and writes a profile outside the plugin. The voice profile is not distributed with the skill.

Profile lookup order

1. WRITEWELL_VOICE_PATH if set (use an absolute path; some hosts do not expand ~)
2. $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/writewell/voice.md, or ~/.config/writewell/voice.md when XDG_CONFIG_HOME is unset
3. Legacy skills/writewell/voice/SKILL.md — migration fallback only

The new file is voice.md, not SKILL.md, and it is not inside a skill folder, so hosts do not register it as a skill. If only the legacy file exists, the skill offers to copy it to the destination (custom path when set, otherwise the per-user default).

The voice/ folder, its README, and .gitkeep remain in the tree for that fallback path but are unused for new profiles.

One profile on more than one computer

Set WRITEWELL_VOICE_PATH to an absolute synced path. Onboard writes that file when the variable is set.

Claude Code — env in ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
  "env": {
    "WRITEWELL_VOICE_PATH": "/Users/you/Sync/writewell/voice.md"
  }
}

Codex — shell_environment_policy.set in ~/.codex/config.toml. A shell export alone is not enough while inherit is the usual core baseline:

[shell_environment_policy]
set = { WRITEWELL_VOICE_PATH = "/Users/you/Sync/writewell/voice.md" }

Cursor (macOS) — GUI apps do not load ~/.zshrc. Set for GUI apps, then restart Cursor:

launchctl setenv WRITEWELL_VOICE_PATH /Users/you/Sync/writewell/voice.md

Cursor (Linux) — export WRITEWELL_VOICE_PATH in the environment that starts Cursor. If the sandbox refuses a read outside the project, allow that path.

Grok Bot — do not use Bot Secrets (those values are hidden from the bot, including in Shell). Copy the profile to ~/.config/writewell/voice.md on the Grok Bot computer, or export WRITEWELL_VOICE_PATH in a profile that computer's agent actually reads. Update, Recover, and Reset can wipe files and shell profiles; keep a synced copy and restore the path there.

Structure

skills/
  onboard/
    SKILL.md            # Writes the profile outside the plugin
  writewell/
    SKILL.md            # Main writing pipeline
    voice/              # Legacy only; not where new profiles are written
      README.md
      .gitkeep

Credits

Writing principles draw from:

• George Orwell — "Politics and the English Language"
• William Zinsser — "On Writing Well"
• David Ogilvy — "Ogilvy on Advertising"
• Wikipedia — "Signs of AI writing"