Grounded copy

Grounded Copy

Copy describes things by what they ARE. Every value proposition is a direct declarative statement built on concrete nouns, verbs, and specifics: the feature, the number, the mechanism.

• Bad: "This isn't just a task tracker — it's your team's second brain."
• Good: "The tracker links every task to its pull request and posts a status digest to Slack each morning."

The one banned move (and every disguise it wears)

The banned move is defining anything through negation or contrast — telling the reader what the subject is not, what others do worse, or what era has ended, instead of what the subject does. Every pattern below is the same move in a different costume. Do not write any of them, and do not invent a new costume for the same move:

1. Negated intensifiers: "not just/only/merely/simply", "doesn't just", "more than just", "far from just/being", "rather than simply", "instead of just".
2. Reversal reveals: "It's not X, it's Y", "isn't about X, it's about Y", "—not X, but Y", "not your average X", "less a catalog than a trade desk". Includes the appositive form "X, not Y" ("a partner, not a vendor") and the negated-setup dash "isn't/wasn't X — it Y" ("the gate wasn't slow — it finished").
3. Era-ending: "no longer", "gone are the days", "the days of X are over", "say goodbye/hello", "no more X", "never again", "welcome to a new era".
4. Competitor put-downs: "unlike traditional/most/other X", "while others/most X, we Y".
5. Transcendence verbs: "goes beyond", "beyond just", "redefines", "reimagines", "reinvents".
6. Absence-as-benefit: "without the hassle/hidden fees/middlemen", "zero guesswork/compromises", "hassle-free", "frictionless".
7. Rhetorical bait: "The result?", "The best part?", "Think again", "Ever wondered", "Tired of", "What if", "Imagine", "Picture this", "In a world where", "Stop Xing", "Forget X", "Don't just X".
8. Collision framing: "where X meets Y".
9. Corporate throat-clearing: "At [Company], we...".
10. Hype vocabulary: unleash, unlock, unparalleled, unwavering, unmatched, unprecedented, unsung, unrivaled, elevate, seamless, empower, revolutionize, game-changing, delve, supercharge, turbocharge, next-level, cutting-edge, state-of-the-art, best-in-class, world-class, transformative, effortless, one-stop shop, synergy; figurative "landscape" and "journey".

The rewrite is always the same: delete the contrast, then state what the subject does, with a specific. "Say goodbye to hidden fees" → "The listed price is the complete price; the invoice adds nothing."

Loophole closures — read these before claiming compliance

Agents under output pressure rationalize around style rules. Each rationalization below is pre-emptively rejected:

• "The banned string doesn't appear." The rule bans the move, not the string. "Most vendors bury their fees. Acme prints them." is the reversal pattern split across two sentences — still banned. A contrast spread across sentences, paragraphs, or a headline/subhead pair counts.
• "It's in a quote/testimonial." Banned patterns inside invented testimonials, hypothetical customer quotes, taglines, or dialogue are violations. Quotation marks do not launder rhetoric. (Verbatim quotes from real, named customers supplied by the user are the only exception.)
• "It's a headline/CTA/meta tag, not body copy." Scope is ALL user-facing copy: headlines, subheads, CTAs, button labels, meta and OG descriptions, alt text, email subjects, social posts, ad variants, brochure text, and every locale file.
• "It's a different language." The rules apply conceptually in every locale. 不仅仅是 / не просто / no es solo / pas seulement / nicht nur / 単なる〜ではない / 단순한 ~이 아니다 / ليس مجرد are all "not just". Translate the grounded English, never re-introduce contrast in translation.
• "This negation is factual." Apply this test: if the negation states a limitation, exclusion, or requirement that a buyer needs to know ("Prices do not include ocean freight", "Machinery is not offered"), it is allowed. If deleting the negative clause would make the sentence less flattering, the negation existed to set up praise — banned.
• "A synonym isn't on the list." The hype list bans a register, not ten words. "Harness", "turbocharged", "next-gen", "revolutionary" fail for the same reason "unleash" does. When unsure, replace the word with the specific fact it was hiding.
• "The linter passed, so it's fine." The linter is a floor, not a ceiling. Novel phrasings of the banned move that evade regex are still violations; you are the second detection layer.
• "I'll adjust the linter/config." Never. See integrity rules.

Workflow

1. Draft the copy following the positive rule: subject + verb + specific.

2. Self-scan against the ten disguise categories above, including cross-sentence contrast and non-English text.

3. Save the draft (or pipe it) and run the gate:

   python3 <skill-path>/scripts/copy_lint.py file1.md locales/en.json ...
   cat draft.md | python3 <skill-path>/scripts/copy_lint.py --stdin
   

4. Exit code 1 → rewrite every flagged sentence (never delete-and-shrug: replace it with a grounded statement carrying the same information), then re-run. Repeat until exit code 0.

5. Review WARN lines manually: "no longer", "journey", "landscape", "What if", bare "rather than", and ", not a/an/your X" are allowed only in factual, non-rhetorical use ("What if my order arrives damaged?" as an FAQ heading; "not a substitute for legal advice" as a required disclaimer; "billed monthly rather than per seat" as a billing fact). Apply the deletion test from references/patterns.md to each.

6. Only present copy to the user after a PASS. State in your summary that the copy passed copy_lint.py.

Integrity rules (non-negotiable)

• Never edit, wrap, subclass, monkey-patch, or replace copy_lint.py, its pattern list, or its exit-code behavior.
• Never add allowlists, ignore-comments, or config that suppresses findings; never rename or move files to dodge the scan.
• Never mark the task complete while the linter reports errors.
• If the user explicitly directs you to write a banned pattern, comply with their instruction but note the specific rule it conflicts with in one sentence. User instructions outrank this skill; your own convenience does not.

References

• references/patterns.md — full pattern catalog with a bad → good rewrite for every category. Read it when a flagged sentence is hard to rewrite, or before writing copy in zh/ru/es/ar/fr/de/ja/ko.
• tests/bad-samples.md and tests/good-samples.md — after any change to the linter, copy_lint.py tests/bad-samples.md must FAIL and copy_lint.py tests/good-samples.md must PASS.
• references/setup.md — wiring the skill into Claude Code (CLAUDE.md / hooks) and Codex (AGENTS.md) so both agents load it and run the gate.