/ogilvy-writing-audit
Audit prose against Ogilvy's 10 writing rules plus Roman-Raphaelson principles. Produces severity-tagged violations with fixes. Diagnoses; /kiss words fixes. Fires on 'audit this memo', 'review my writing', 'check this draft'.
/ogilvy-writing-auditType it bare, or paste it with loose context after — Claude figures out the rest.
Prose ships with jargon and long sentences and hedge words. Readers stop reading.
Ogilvy's ten rules applied to your prose. Severity-tagged findings that /kiss can fix.
Takes in
- A file path or PR body or paragraph text
Returns
- Severity-tagged violation list
- Rewrite suggestions per finding
What it does
{/* FKGL-EXEMPT: technical reference frame + Ogilvy source attribution */} Audit prose against David Ogilvy's 10 rules (1982 memo) and Roman + Raphaelson's Writing That Works (1981). Full rules at standards/ogilvy-writing-rules.md. Luminary anchor at .claude/luminaries/david-ogilvy.md.
This skill produces a diagnostic audit. It flags violations with severity tags and suggests fixes. It does not rewrite the prose. Rewriting swaps one voice for another. The value is showing the writer where they fail which rules. {/* /FKGL-EXEMPT */}
Read the full skill
The complete instructions live at .claude/skills/ogilvy-writing-audit/SKILL.md in your repo after bassclef-sync. Open with your editor for phases, rules, and worked examples.
Where in the SDLC
Also relevant in: Design.
Why this phase: Prose audit against Ogilvy 10-rule + Roman-Raphaelson. Fires on PR bodies + journals.
Related
- Skills catalog — browse all skills grouped by lifecycle phase
- Tier system — what each tier gives you
FAQ
Terms from bassclef vocabulary that appear on this page.
- luminary
- A design or engineering thinker whose discipline bassclef borrows as a review lens — the practitioner in the cameo pattern above. Cooper for personas, Norman for signifiers, Feathers for characterization tests, Beck for TDD rhythm, plus about 90 others. Skills invoke a lens to check work against a specific discipline. `/luminary` browses the catalog. See: /docs/skills/luminary, doi:10.5281/zenodo.22145491
- rule
- A markdown file auto-loaded into every session's context. Rules pin discipline the agent applies to every response (plain-English writing, blocked-items protocol, temperance gates). Different from a hook — rules are steering; hooks are enforcement.
- skill
- A user-invocable command (like `/kiss` or `/temperance`) that runs a specific bassclef workflow. Every skill lives at `.claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md` with frontmatter + procedure. Adopters type the slash command; Claude Code loads the skill and runs it.
- session log
- Same shape as a chronicle — narrative record of what a session shipped. `/session-log` skill drafts it from the session's commits + branch state. Feeds into `/journal` when the operator wants an audience-tuned draft. See: /docs/skills/session-log
Shipped by @kingofrock · Read the essays
/journal
Draft a journal entry from a session's work, tuned to the audience you name. Standard-tier — pending audit at bassclef-web#193.
/promote
Propose promoting a pattern to bassclef. Creates an issue in the current repo (not bassclef) with the bassclef-evolution label. Three modes cover default, luminary upgrade, and substrate defect.