Agent skill

Readability Guidance

by testdouble in testdouble/han

Surfaces Han's shared Human-Readable Output Standard — the readability rule and the writing-voice profile — into the calling skill's own context, so the caller drafts in voice and runs its…

MITAuto-check passedWriting & Content

Install Readability Guidance

skills CLI
$ npx skills add testdouble/han --skill readability-guidance -a claude-code

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

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install testdouble/han readability-guidance --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/testdouble/han.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/han-communication/skills/readability-guidance .claude/skills/readability-guidance && 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
readability-guidance
GitHub stars
279
Token cost
~1.6k tokens
SKILL.md length
814 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
54
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

Surfaces Han's shared Human-Readable Output Standard — the readability rule and the writing-voice profile — into the calling skill's own context, so the caller drafts in voice and runs its…

  • Works in 3 steps: Resolve the writing-voice source, then… → Hold the audience frame while you draft → Apply the standard in stages, then…
  • A prose-producing skill needs the shared readability standard available in context before it drafts
  • SKILL.md covers Project Context, Which outputs this standard…, Step 1: Resolve the… and Step 2: Hold the audience…, plus 1 more section
  • Calls bash

What it does

Readability Guidance is an agent skill from testdouble/han. Surfaces Han's shared Human-Readable Output Standard — the readability rule and the writing-voice profile — into the calling skill's own context, so the caller drafts in voice and runs its self-check against the current standard sourced from one canonical copy. Use when a prose-producing skill needs the shared readability standard available in context before it drafts. Governs the shape of a written deliverable, where explanation-guidance governs what a run says to a person in a turn. Runs in the caller's context…

Its SKILL.md is about 1.6k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. It is a single SKILL.md file with no bundled scripts.

It sits in Writing & Content, covering Plain language and style rules, Verification before completion and Brand voice and tone. The repository describes itself as: Han: AI skills and agents for "Solo" product engineers and small teams. The licence is MIT.

When your agent uses it

  • A prose-producing skill needs the shared readability standard available in context before it drafts
  • Tasks that involve Plain language and style rules
  • Tasks that involve Verification before completion

Example prompts

  • “Use the readability-guidance skill to surface Han's shared Human-Readable Output Standard — the readability rule and the writing-voice profile —…”
  • “/readability-guidance”

Requirements

  • Pre-approved tools (allowed-tools): Read, Bash(bash "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/han-config-dir.sh")

Workflow steps

3 steps, taken from the step headings in SKILL.md.

  1. Resolve the writing-voice source, then read the standard
  2. Hold the audience frame while you draft
  3. Apply the standard in stages, then continue

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit abba73a. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves these tools, so the agent can use them without asking each time:

    • Read
    • Bash(bash "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/han-config-dir.sh")

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

    • bash

    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

Readability Guidance loads about 1.6k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 233 tokens; SKILL.md has 814 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~233
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~1.6k

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 testdouble/han at commit abba73a, republished under its MIT licence (© testdouble). 814 words, ~1,630 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/readability-guidance/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder).
name
readability-guidance
description
Surfaces Han's shared Human-Readable Output Standard — the readability rule and the writing-voice profile — into the calling skill's own context, so the caller drafts in voice and runs its self-check against the current standard sourced from one canonical copy. Use when a prose-producing skill needs the shared readability standard available in context before it drafts. Governs the shape of a written deliverable, where explanation-guidance governs what a run says to a person in a turn. Runs in the caller's context and hands control straight back; it does not produce a deliverable of its own, rewrite anything, or judge the caller's work. Does not run the adversarial rewrite pass — dispatch the readability-editor agent for that, or use edit-for-readability to rewrite an existing target. Does not cover explaining technical work to a reader who will not implement it — use explanation-guidance for that.
allowed-tools
Read, Bash(bash "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/han-config-dir.sh")

Project Context

  • personal config directory: !bash "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/han-config-dir.sh" 2>/dev/null || echo "$HOME/.claude"
  • project .han/config.md: !cat .han/config.md 2>/dev/null || echo ""

As your first action, use the Read tool on .han/config.md inside the personal config directory path above. A read that returns no file is no personal configuration: continue silently. When that file or the project .han/config.md probe supplies content, apply it per config-rule.md, which governs precedence between the two files, relative-path resolution, and what to do with a file that reads but cannot be used.

Readability Guidance

You have invoked readability-guidance to source the shared readability standard before you draft prose. This skill surfaces the standard into your own context and hands control back. It is a means to writing your deliverable, not the deliverable itself: apply what it surfaces while you draft and self-check, then RETURN to the workflow that called you and finish it.

This skill is inline — it runs in your context, not an isolated one, so the standard it surfaces stays available to you after it returns. Do not treat anything here as a stopping point or a final answer.

Which outputs this standard covers

A structured specification, plan, phased build, work-item list, coding standard, or test plan is reader-facing whenever a human reads it end to end — to approve it, follow it, or build from it — even when downstream skills also consume it. Only an artifact consumed purely as a pipeline input, with no human reading it end to end, falls outside the standard. If a human reads your deliverable end to end, apply the standard to it.

Step 1: Resolve the writing-voice source, then read the standard

First resolve which writing-voice profile this run uses:

  • When either .han/config.md probe supplied a writing-voice value, resolve it and check that the file exists. A relative value resolves against the folder holding the file that declared it: the working directory for the project file, and the personal config directory the probe reported for the personal file. A full path is used as it stands, and a leading ~ expands to the home directory. When both files supply a value, the project file's wins.
    • When the file exists, it is the writing-voice profile for this run, used in place of the built-in profile.
    • When the file does not exist, warn the user that the configured writing-voice file was not found, naming which of the two configuration files declared it, and ask whether to use the built-in Han voice or skip the writing voice entirely for this run. Honor the answer: fall back to the built-in profile, or proceed with no voice profile at all.
  • When neither probe supplied a writing-voice value, the built-in profile at ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/references/writing-voice.md applies.

Then read the reference files, in this order, so their full content enters your context:

  1. ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/references/readability-rule.md — the Human-Readable Output Standard: the audience frame, the output properties, the length guidance, the prose-only and fidelity rules, and the standardized self-check.
  2. The resolved writing-voice profile — the configured file, or the built-in ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/references/writing-voice.md, whose "Avoided words and phrases" and "AI slop to avoid" sections are the authoritative vocabulary blocklist the rule points to. A configured profile stands in for the built-in one wholesale: apply whatever voice and vocabulary guidance it carries. When the user chose to skip the writing voice, read only the readability rule and apply it with no voice profile and no vocabulary blocklist.

Do not paraphrase or summarize the files in place of reading them — the surfaced content is the point.

Show full SKILL.md (238 more words)Show less

Step 2: Hold the audience frame while you draft

While you draft, write for a capable reader who did not do this work and lacks the author's context. If the calling skill names a specific reader (an engineer implementing a fix, a PR reviewer, a non-technical stakeholder), write for that reader instead and keep the technical specifics that reader needs. The frame governs how a fact is said, never whether a required fact appears.

Step 3: Apply the standard in stages, then continue

The standard takes effect in stages, never as one stacked instruction block:

  • Draft into your template so the structural rules (main point first, descriptive headings, one idea per paragraph, numbered-vs-bullet lists, progressive disclosure, technical detail after the prose) are built in.
  • After the draft exists, run the standardized self-check from the readability rule over the prose regions only — never inside code fences, diagram bodies, rendered markup, or citation identifiers. Correct every failure before presenting. On a skill that runs no separate rewrite pass, the fidelity criterion is the only fact-preservation guard the output has, so it is not optional.
  • If your workflow is a synthesis skill, dispatch han-communication:readability-editor for the adversarial rewrite after your full draft exists, as the standard reserves that pass for synthesis output. This skill does not run that rewrite.

The standard is now in your context. Proceed to the next step of the skill that invoked you and produce its deliverable.

© testdouble, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

Just SKILL.md in han-communication/skills/readability-guidance of testdouble/han.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit abba73a

Compare with similar skills

Readability Guidance 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.

Readability Guidance compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Readability Guidance this skilltestdouble/han279—~1.6kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
UX Writingcontent-designer/ux-writing-skill222—~3.8kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Blog PersonaAgriciDaniel/claude-blog2.3k1 repos~2.3kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Checkindranilbanerjee/digital-marketing-pro8541 repos~4.4kAutomated safety check: NotesMIT
Draft In Voicegarrytan/gbrain31k—~3.7kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Eval Contentindranilbanerjee/digital-marketing-pro8541 repos~2.3kAutomated safety check: PassMIT

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Questions about Readability Guidance

What does Readability Guidance do?

Surfaces Han's shared Human-Readable Output Standard — the readability rule and the writing-voice profile — into the calling skill's own context, so the caller drafts in voice and runs its…. Readability Guidance is an agent skill from testdouble/han. Surfaces Han's shared Human-Readable Output Standard — the readability rule and the writing-voice profile — into the calling skill's own context, so the caller drafts in voice and runs its self-check against the current standard sourced from one canonical copy.

When should I use Readability Guidance?

Readability Guidance fits situations like: A prose-producing skill needs the shared readability standard available in context before it drafts; tasks that involve Plain language and style rules; tasks that involve Verification before completion.

How do I install Readability Guidance in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add testdouble/han --skill readability-guidance -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (han-communication/skills/readability-guidance in testdouble/han) into .claude/skills/readability-guidance in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Readability Guidance in Codex?

Run `npx skills add testdouble/han --skill readability-guidance -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (han-communication/skills/readability-guidance in testdouble/han) into .agents/skills/readability-guidance in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Readability Guidance 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 testdouble/han --skill readability-guidance -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/readability-guidance, .gemini/skills/readability-guidance, .github/skills/readability-guidance and .opencode/skills/readability-guidance in your project.

What does Readability Guidance need to run?

Going by SKILL.md and its folder, Readability Guidance needs the command-line tools its instructions call (bash). Its frontmatter pre-approves these tools: Read, Bash(bash "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/han-config-dir.sh").

Does Readability Guidance 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 Readability Guidance 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 Readability Guidance use?

Readability Guidance is published under the MIT licence (the repository's licence). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Readability Guidance use?

About 1.6k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 6.5k 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 Readability Guidance?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Readability Guidance: UX Writing (content-designer/ux-writing-skill, 222 stars), Blog Persona (AgriciDaniel/claude-blog, 2.3k stars), Check (indranilbanerjee/digital-marketing-pro, 854 stars) and Draft In Voice (garrytan/gbrain, 31k stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Readability Guidance?

testdouble (a GitHub organization) maintains it in testdouble/han, which has 279 GitHub stars. The repository holds 54 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on October 1, 2026.

Source: testdouble/han on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.