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Google style guide

Skill mcclowes/skills-docusaurus/skills/google-style-guide

Use when writing or reviewing technical documentation to follow Google's documentation style guide — enforce active voice and present tense, apply sentence case to headings, fix list and procedure formatting, mark code/UI elements correctly, flag non-inclusive terminology, and remove time-specific phrasing. Triggers on tasks involving technical writing, doc review, style consistency, inclusive language, or formatting standards.From its SKILL.md

Install
npx -y skills add mcclowes/skills-docusaurus --skill google-style-guide

Assembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.

One thing to look at

  • 1 stars1 stars. Stars are a popularity signal and not a quality one, but at this level it is likely that nobody has read this closely except its author, and you would be relying on your own review.

What its file declares

Copied from the file, not written here

The file declares its own license as CC-BY-4.0. That is the author’s claim about this one file, and it is not the same thing as the license GitHub reports for the repository, which is listed with the other numbers below.

SKILL.md

3.9 KB, as published. Nobody here has run it

Google Style Guide

Attribution: This skill adapts material from the Google developer documentation style guide, © Google, licensed under CC BY 4.0. The content here has been condensed and restructured into skill form. As a derivative work it is distributed under the same CC BY 4.0 license — not MIT.

Quick Start

Apply Google's documentation style guide principles to technical writing:

  • Use active voice and present tense
  • Write clear, concise headings
  • Use numbered lists for procedures, bulleted lists for non-sequential items
  • Put conditional clauses before instructions

Core Principles

  • Clarity first: Write for software developers and technical practitioners
  • Consistency: Follow project-specific > Google > third-party style guides
  • Accessibility: Use inclusive language and consider global audiences
  • Timeless: Avoid time-specific references; use "currently" or "as of [date]"
  • Reader-focused: Prioritize user understanding over strict grammatical rules

Common Patterns

Voice and Tense

Use active voice and present tense. Example: "The API returns..." not "The API will return..."

Headings

Use sentence case for headings. Make them descriptive and actionable.

Lists and Procedures

  • Numbered lists: For sequential steps
  • Bulleted lists: For non-sequential items
  • Start each item with a capital letter

Code and UI Elements

  • Use code font for code elements, filenames, and UI elements
  • Use bold for UI elements users interact with
  • Use descriptive placeholder names like YOUR_PROJECT_ID

Worked Example

Several rules usually apply at once. Before/after for a typical doc sentence:

Before: "Once the Configuration File has been Edited by the user, the changes will be applied by the system and the build process will then be triggered."

After: "After you edit the config file, the system applies your changes and triggers the build."

What changed: passive → active voice; future → present tense; title case → sentence case; wordy clauses tightened; filename in code font.

Review Workflow

When reviewing a doc, make one focused pass per concern rather than reading once and hoping to catch everything:

  1. Voice & tense — rewrite passive/future-tense sentences as active present tense.
  2. Structure & headings — sentence-case headings; numbered lists for steps, bullets otherwise.
  3. Formatting — code font for code/filenames/UI, bold for interactive elements, descriptive placeholders.
  4. Inclusive & timeless language — flag biased terms and time-specific phrasing (see references).

Reference Files

For detailed documentation, see:

Notes

  • Official guide: https://developers.google.com/style
  • Third-party references: Merriam-Webster (spelling), Chicago Manual of Style
  • When in doubt: Choose clarity over strict rule adherence

Keep looking

Skills are one crate of 627,801. Ordering is by how many stacks a row turns up in, so the top of any crate is what has actually been picked rather than what has the most stars.