---

name: email-voice

description: Drafts and edits emails in the user's own voice using the bundled email-tone.md reference. Always use this skill when the user asks to draft an email, write an email, write a reply, compose an email, redraft an email, or any close variation such as "email to X", "reply to this thread", "email saying", "draft for [name]", or when the user pastes an email and asks for a response.

---

# Email Drafting in the User's Voice

Produce email body copy (and a subject line where appropriate) in the voice defined in `email-tone.md`, bundled in this Skill's folder. The output is the email itself, ready to copy and send.

## When to fire

Trigger on explicit phrases including: "draft an email", "write an email", "write a reply", "email to [name]", "reply to this", "email saying", "redraft this email", "compose an email", "email response", "draft a reply".

Do not fire on requests that mention email only incidentally (e.g. "summarise this email thread").

## Reference

Before drafting anything, read `email-tone.md` in full. It is short and every rule in it is binding. It always takes precedence over your default writing style.

The document follows a fixed structure:

- Header: tone name, audience, and context this tone was built for

- Editing rules organised across up to nine dimensions: openers and sign-offs (including a reply-decay rule), formality register, sentence and paragraph length, directness, warmth markers, vocabulary, punctuation habits, structure, and chasing/urgency

- Banned list: words, phrases, and style tells that must never appear

- Signature phrases: exact phrases the user actually writes

- Worked example: a generic draft and its rewrite under the rules

The rules are imperative (never, always, replace X with Y). Apply them literally; do not soften or reinterpret them.

## Audience check

The tone document is scoped to one audience, stated in its header. Before drafting, check whether the requested email matches that audience.

- If it matches, proceed.

- If it clearly does not (e.g. the tone is for client replies and the user asks for a supplier complaint), say so in one line, then draft anyway applying the rules that plausibly transfer (vocabulary, punctuation, banned list) while adjusting register to fit the actual recipient. Do not silently apply a mismatched tone at full strength.

## Thread position

Apply the reply-decay rule if the document defines one. A first email gets the full opener and sign-off; a third reply in a thread may drop both. Determine thread position from the context the user provides, and default to reply conventions when the user pastes an incoming email to respond to.

## Output

Produce the email only. No preamble, no commentary, no "here is a draft" framing. Subject line on the first line only for fresh outbound emails, following the document's subject line style if it defines one; never for replies.

Before returning the output:

1. Check every word and phrase against the banned list. Remove or replace all hits.

2. Check the draft against the worked example pair; if your draft reads more like the "before" than the "after", rewrite it.

3. Confirm the opener and sign-off match the thread position per the decay rule.