Voice Card

voice-card

The brand voice (kit voice plus the brand's rules: every dont and must in its learnings) says what the brand may say and how it sounds overall. A voice card says how one account or person actually writes: lowercase or not, how long, which emoji, how they open. Adjectives ("warm, playful") don't stop generic copy; a card measured from real posts does.

Choose the source

Used alone: first do the marketing-guide skill (../marketing-guide/SKILL.md) §1–2 (connection, brand and brain rules). Called from a writing job: reuse its setup. A company-blog or long-form voice ask follows references/blog-voice.md and returns; social posts and personal voice follow Build below. A blog guide is usable without releasing the full brand intake playbook.

Where it lives

• One file per account or person: brand/voices/<handle>.md, brand coworker scope (coworker_agent_id from the gooseworks:brand_read list; no coworker → default workspace, path prefixed brands/<brand-slug>/).
• Handle: lower-case, hyphens, no @: brand (the brand's own voice across its accounts), ig-<account>, tiktok-<account>, linkedin-<first-last>, founder-<first-last>, blog-<brand-slug> (company long-form writing). One card per account where mechanics differ; accounts that write the same way share brand.
• Read before you write (gooseworks:file_read; file_write replaces the file). Save with the save-to-brain skill (../save-to-brain/SKILL.md) (versioned: supersede, title Voice card <handle> — <Brand> — <YYYY-MM-DD>, tags [voice-card, voice-<handle>]) so it is findable from any host. The tags name this atom, not the playbook that ran it: for save-to-brain's supersede rule, the creator is the first tag (voice-card), so any writer's newer card supersedes an older one.

Precedence (non-negotiable)

1. The brand's rules win: every dont and must (never-say, banned words, terminology, not public), the claims contract (the claims-gate skill (../claims-gate/SKILL.md)), and the rules in the confirmed brand voice (what it never does, how it treats customers).
2. A person's or account's card wins on style: mechanics, openings, lexicon, humour. The brand voice's style gives way to a founder's own card when writing as that founder.
3. Real posts beat any description of the voice. Example lines in the kit voice are evidence of style only; a claim inside them is not proof.
4. If the brand marker says voice: provisional, every card built on it is provisional too.

Read

gooseworks:file_read brand/voices/<handle>.md. Missing, or built more than 90 days ago, or older than the account's last 8 posts → build or update. A card marked status: provisional is usable, and drafts from it say so.

Build

1. Sources, by weight:
   • the account's own real posts: TikTok/Instagram from gooseworks:brand_read sections: ["organic"] (own_posts); other platforms through the proxy (the marketing-data-access skill, ../marketing-data-access/SKILL.md) or, when not reachable, 10–20 posts the human pastes. For a founder, a few of their replies and comments too (the least polished, so the truest voice);
   • the kit voice, tone, and learnings (do / dont / must);
   • the buyers' words (research-audience's voice-of-customer bank, research/audience/voc-bank.md) for hooks only; it is not the brand's voice.
2. Minimum corpus: about 8 real posts. Below it, run a 5-minute voice interview instead (or take a voice note via gooseworks:media_upload + gooseworks:media_analyze): 3 things you've written that sound like you; 3 words you'd never use; who you write for; a belief about the category others don't share; what makes you cringe in other brands' posts; emoji yes/no and which; lowercase or proper; one story you tell often; off-limits topics; who approves posts in your name. Save the card status: provisional.
3. Measure, with numbers, not adjectives: words per sentence and per post (median, range); casing; line breaks; rates of em-dash, ellipsis, exclamation and question marks; emoji rate and the exact set; symbols used for words; fragment and typo tolerance; opening moves with 5–10 verbatim first lines; closings; pet phrases and nicknames; jargon and swearing level; how they name customers and rivals; humour; for people who take positions, a stance ledger (each opinion with its source post); never-says (moves absent from the corpus that AI reaches for); top 5 and bottom 5 posts against the account median with the likely why. Leave out captions that come back cut off.
4. Write the card:

Copy code
Voice card — <handle> · <Brand> · built <YYYY-MM-DD> from <n> posts (<sources>) · status: <confirmed | provisional>
Rules with numbers: …
Openings that are theirs: <5 verbatim>
Pet phrases: … · Never-says: …
Stance ledger: <opinion> — <source post>   (people only)
Humour: …
Brand rules that apply (from learnings): …
5 real posts, annotated (why each one sounds like them)
3 wrong → right rewrites (a generic draft vs the same idea in their voice)
What performed: top 5 / bottom 5 with the likely why

5. Confirm. Show the card ("does this sound like you?"). A person's card needs that person's yes; until then it is provisional. Their corrections go into the card in their words.

Update

Append new posts, re-measure when at least 8 new ones exist, keep the stance ledger growing, bump the date, save a new version. Never drop a confirmed rule without the person's yes.

Match test (on every draft before it is shown)

1. Every mechanic within the card's range; emoji set, casing and punctuation habits match exactly.
2. Swap test: put a competitor's name in. If the draft still reads true, add the detail only this brand or person could say.
3. Read aloud: would they say it?
4. Line-up: mix the draft with three real posts; if someone holding only the card can pick out the draft, rewrite it.
5. Then the claims-gate skill (../claims-gate/SKILL.md) on the draft.

Named people

Never invent first-person experience, a habit, product use, a number or an opinion for a founder, ambassador, employee or customer. An opinion must trace to the stance ledger or to their own words in this conversation. Leave a marked gap ([NAME: the time a customer caught a bug before you did]) for material they haven't given; a gap with no material behind it is cut.