Agent skill

Writing Style

by open-thoughts in open-thoughts/OpenThoughts-Agent

Marin house writing style. An agent skill from open-thoughts/OpenThoughts-Agent.

Apache-2.0Auto-check passedWriting & Content

Install Writing Style

skills CLI
$ npx skills add open-thoughts/OpenThoughts-Agent --skill writing-style -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install open-thoughts/OpenThoughts-Agent writing-style --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/open-thoughts/OpenThoughts-Agent.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/.agents/skills/writing-style .claude/skills/writing-style && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
writing-style
GitHub stars
301
Token cost
~1.3k tokens
SKILL.md length
709 words
Files
9
Skills in repo
44
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
Apache-2.0

At a glance

Marin house writing style. An agent skill from open-thoughts/OpenThoughts-Agent.

  • Revising Marin-authored prose
  • SKILL.md covers Read The Right File, Hold The Marin Positioning, Keep The Core Vibe and On Voice, plus 8 more sections
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md
  • Including commit messages and GitHub PR

What it does

Writing Style is an agent skill from open-thoughts/OpenThoughts-Agent. Marin house writing style. Use when drafting or revising Marin-authored prose, including commit messages and GitHub PR, issue, or comment text.

Its SKILL.md is about 1.3k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. The skill folder holds 8 other files (for example `ai-writing-donts.md`, `blog-posts.md` and `discord.md`).

It sits in Writing & Content, covering Brand voice and tone and Commit messages. It works with GitHub and Discord. The repository describes itself as: Data recipes and robust infrastructure for training AI agents. The licence is Apache-2.0.

When your agent uses it

  • Revising Marin-authored prose
  • Including commit messages and GitHub PR

Example prompts

  • “/writing-style”

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 3bd1917. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md.

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Writing Style loads about 1.3k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 39 tokens; SKILL.md has 709 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~39
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~1.3k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from open-thoughts/OpenThoughts-Agent at commit 3bd1917, republished under its Apache-2.0 licence (© open-thoughts). 709 words, ~1,340 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/writing-style/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder). This skill also uses 8 other files; get the full folder from GitHub.
name
writing-style
description
Marin house writing style. Use when drafting or revising Marin-authored prose, including commit messages and GitHub PR, issue, or comment text.
<!-- Vendored from marin-community/marin-style v0.3.0 — do not edit; re-run `marin-style sync`. -->

Marin House Style

Start here for any non-trivial Marin-authored text. This file is the common layer; then read the medium-specific file that matches the deliverable.

Read The Right File

  • Read blog-posts.md for public explainers and blog posts.
  • Read reports.md for technical reports aimed at peer researchers outside Marin.
  • Read tutorials.md for learning-oriented documentation that introduces Marin.
  • Read reference-docs.md for precise usage docs aimed at readers who already know Marin.
  • Read issues.md for standard OSS issues and experiment issues.
  • Read pull-requests.md for commit messages and PR titles and bodies.
  • Read discord.md for Discord summaries and tactical replies.
  • Read ai-writing-donts.md for the final prose-only review pass that strips generic AI-writing patterns.
  • Apply this file first, then apply the medium-specific file. If a piece spans multiple media, keep the stricter rule.

Hold The Marin Positioning

  • Write from the stance of a rigorous, open-science lab building frontier-level foundation models.
  • Treat process as part of the work. Experiments, decisions, and mistakes all belong in the record.
  • Let the work speak. Do not substitute tone for evidence.

Keep The Core Vibe

  • Be sober, not flashy.
  • Project quiet confidence.
  • Keep an open door, not a megaphone.
  • Stay practical and hands-on.
  • Aim to be helpful and respectful.
  • Assume a baseline familiarity with ML systems.
  • Don’t dilute discussions to accommodate every level of experience. (Different media will be intended for different levels of experience.)
  • Don’t be overly formal; write like a technical peer, not an academic paper or a product blog.
  • Use technical language where it helps, but keep the tone natural and direct.

On Voice

The above defines the default voice; we allow some flexibility by author. These rules are stricter for agent-written text than for human-written text.

Researchers need not suppress their own voice. Some personality is fine, especially in retrospectives, blog posts, and narrative writeups, as long as the writing stays concrete, honest, and technically disciplined.

Agents should err toward more discipline. When reviewing human prose, allow deviations and flourishes that do not conflict with core Marin values.

Enforce Hard Rules

  • Remove hype, marketing copy, and launch-tweet energy.
  • Use emoji very sparingly: for communication, not flair.
  • Remove grand claims that outrun the evidence.
  • Avoid AGI rhetoric and speculation.
  • Avoid adjectives that try to do the work of numbers.
  • If a sentence sounds like a product announcement, rewrite it.
Show full SKILL.md (327 more words)Show less

Follow The Writing Principles

  • Show results instead of claiming them. Prefer concrete numbers, examples, and observed behavior.
  • Prefer the simplest framing that is still correct.
  • State uncertainty plainly. Use phrases like we think, preliminary results suggest, or this seems to break down when... when warranted.
  • Treat the reader as a capable collaborator. Do not condescend or over-explain basics.
  • Default to transparency. Include what worked, what failed, what surprised you, and what you would try next.
  • Cite the relevant prior work and artifacts. This includes Marin experiments, reports, issues, PRs, papers, and other external work when they materially inform the piece.

Add Structure For Longer-Form Writing

  • For longer-form writing, include an easy-to-scan doc-level TL;DR near the top.

  • For longer-form writing, add section-level takeaway lines or short TL;DRs where they help readers navigate.

  • Do not force these patterns into short-form media that do not benefit from them.

Set Audience By Default

  • Assume the reader works in ML or LLMs unless the medium says otherwise.
  • Do not assume deep specialization by default.
  • Introduce non-standard terms before using them heavily.
  • Add detail only when it helps the reader reproduce, evaluate, or act.

Use Sentence-Level Defaults

  • Prefer short, direct sentences.
  • Lead with the result or takeaway.
  • Follow with method or explanation.
  • End with caveats, limits, or open questions when needed.
  • Prefer phrases like we found, this suggests, in practice, and one limitation is.
  • Avoid phrases like clearly, obviously, groundbreaking, and state-of-the-art unless you define and defend them.

Review For AI-Writing Tells

Do one editing pass that looks only for generic, over-smoothed, LLM-sounding prose. Then apply ai-writing-donts.md as the detailed checklist for what to remove or rewrite.

Run A Quick Self-Check

  • Did you include concrete evidence?
  • Did you remove hype language?
  • Would this sound normal spoken aloud to a colleague?
  • Did you overstate certainty or scope?
  • Did you remove generic AI-writing templates and filler?

Keep The One-Line Summary

Write clearly, honestly, and with enough evidence for the work to stand on its own.

© open-thoughts, Apache-2.0. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 8 other files in .agents/skills/writing-style of open-thoughts/OpenThoughts-Agent.

  • SKILL.md
  • ai-writing-donts.md
  • blog-posts.md
  • discord.md
  • issues.md
  • pull-requests.md
  • reference-docs.md
  • reports.md
  • tutorials.md

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 3bd1917

Compare with similar skills

Writing Style next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Writing Style compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Writing Style this skillopen-thoughts/OpenThoughts-Agent301—~1.3kAutomated safety check: PassApache-2.0
Writing Styleumputun/cc-thingz484—~1.3kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Subwave Discord Releaseperminder-klair/subwave1.4k—~2.3kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Agent Journal and Issue Repliesyologdev/yoyo-evolve1.9k—~2.6kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Writewaynesutton/markdown-site628—~3kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Writerrileyhilliard/claude-essentials130—~2kAutomated safety check: PassMIT

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Works with

Questions about Writing Style

What does Writing Style do?

Marin house writing style. An agent skill from open-thoughts/OpenThoughts-Agent. Writing Style is an agent skill from open-thoughts/OpenThoughts-Agent. Marin house writing style.

When should I use Writing Style?

Writing Style fits situations like: revising Marin-authored prose; including commit messages and GitHub PR.

How do I install Writing Style in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add open-thoughts/OpenThoughts-Agent --skill writing-style -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (.agents/skills/writing-style in open-thoughts/OpenThoughts-Agent) into .claude/skills/writing-style in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Writing Style in Codex?

Run `npx skills add open-thoughts/OpenThoughts-Agent --skill writing-style -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (.agents/skills/writing-style in open-thoughts/OpenThoughts-Agent) into .agents/skills/writing-style in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Writing Style in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add open-thoughts/OpenThoughts-Agent --skill writing-style -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/writing-style, .gemini/skills/writing-style, .github/skills/writing-style and .opencode/skills/writing-style in your project.

What does Writing Style need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Writing Style is instructions for the agent only.

Does Writing Style access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Writing Style safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Writing Style use?

Writing Style is published under the Apache-2.0 licence (the repository's licence). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Writing Style use?

About 1.3k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 5.4k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full.

What are the alternatives to Writing Style?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Writing Style: Writing Style (umputun/cc-thingz, 484 stars), Subwave Discord Release (perminder-klair/subwave, 1.4k stars), Agent Journal and Issue Replies (yologdev/yoyo-evolve, 1.9k stars) and Write (waynesutton/markdown-site, 628 stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Writing Style?

open-thoughts (a GitHub organization) maintains it in open-thoughts/OpenThoughts-Agent, which has 301 GitHub stars. The repository holds 44 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on September 28, 2026.

Source: open-thoughts/OpenThoughts-Agent on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.