Engineering writing

Skill segunadebayo/design-eng-skills/skills/engineering-writing

Use when writing something public-facing about this project's engineering. A release announcement, a how-we-built-X deep-dive, a retrospective. Not tied to a release event, and not the mechanical changelog (that's changeset-writing's job).From its SKILL.md

Install

npx -y skills add segunadebayo/design-eng-skills --skill engineering-writing

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

6 stars6 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.

SKILL.md

2.6 KB, 579 tokens by cl100k_base, as published. Nobody here has run it

Engineering Writing

Narrative, external-facing technical writing, built from reading real engineering blogs end to end and cross-checking against writing-craft, persuasion, and copywriting research, not from generic advice about "good writing." Every technique in the references below is attributed to where it actually came from.

1. Know which register you're writing

An announcement, a how-we-built-X deep-dive, or a retrospective answer different reader questions and take different shapes. Decide this first. references/REGISTERS.md.

2. Diagnose the reader and find what's actually remarkable

What does the reader already believe, and is there a genuinely surprising fact here, or is this the same generic post everyone already wrote? Don't draft until you have a real answer to both. references/PERSUASION-ETHICS.md and references/METHODOLOGY.md.

3. Draft badly and fast, separate from editing

Write the one small section you understand completely, not the whole piece at once. Cutting happens later, as its own pass. references/METHODOLOGY.md.

4. Choose the opening on purpose

Nine real patterns, cold scene, concrete problem, disarming confession, myth-then-dismantle, reframed word, credentials-then-claim, TL;DR, tension, two-sentence tradeoff, pick the one that fits what you actually have. references/OPENINGS-AND-MOMENTUM.md.

5. Structure for momentum

Every sentence's job is to get the next one read. Reveal iteratively, show the alternatives you rejected, end sections with a reason to keep going. references/OPENINGS-AND-MOMENTUM.md.

6. Write in plain voice, cut the slop

Second person, short sentences, a number or name behind every claim. No em dashes, no decorative emoji, no hype words, no AI-tell phrases. Run the checklist before you ship. references/VOICE-AND-SLOP.md.

7. Close with the one thing

A command to run, a link, the sentence you'd want quoted if nothing else gets read. Never a summary of what you already said.

The mechanical, per-change changelog entry is changeset-writing's job, not this one. This skill is for the narrative writing: why it matters, what was hard, what happened, not the record of what changed.

What ships with it: 6 files

36.8 KB alongside SKILL.md

agents/

openai.yaml125 B

references/

Gives 0 of the 12 instructions most docs writing skills give in 579 tokens

Counted across 1,951 of the 3,904 authors here whose files we hold, read 2026-09-06

Use third-person for skill descriptionsin 54 of 1951, across 35 files
Start descriptions with Use whenin 43 of 1951, across 29 files
Run baseline scenarios before writing any skillin 40 of 1951, across 26 files
Use active voicein 40 of 1951, across 36 files
Map file responsibilities before defining tasksin 36 of 1951, across 29 files
Use checkbox syntax for tracking stepsin 35 of 1951, across 27 files
Ask one question at a timein 35 of 1951
Offer execution options after saving the planin 33 of 1951, across 24 files
Include complete code in every stepin 33 of 1951, across 27 files
Design units with clear boundaries and interfacesin 31 of 1951, across 23 files
Announce the skill usage at the startin 30 of 1951
Verify agent compliance after adding the skillin 29 of 1951, across 17 files

Said here and by no other author read

Decide the register before drafting
Identify the reader and remarkable facts
Draft small sections quickly
Choose an intentional opening pattern
Structure content to maintain momentum
Write in plain voice

Grouped from the skills themselves: near-identical wordings counted once, and counted by distinct author, so one author publishing three of these counts once. Length counted with cl100k_base; the agent that loads this file may tokenize it differently.