Source: obra/the-elements-of-style · Maintainer: community: Jesse Vincent · License: Public domain (per package.json; no LICENSE file) · Checked: 24 October 2026
What is the writing-clearly-and-concisely skill?
writing-clearly-and-concisely is an Agent Skill that gives your coding agent William Strunk Jr.'s The Elements of Style (1918): a one-page list of its 18 rules plus the full 1918 text, applied whenever the agent writes prose a person will read. That covers README files, commit messages, pull request descriptions, error messages, UI copy and reports.
It comes from obra/the-elements-of-style by Jesse Vincent, the author of Superpowers. The README states its purpose plainly: "This plugin hands your agent Strunk's guidance whenever it writes documentation, commit messages, error text, or any other prose a human will read."
Its skills.sh page listed 2.1K installs (snapshot, 24 October 2026). The skill folder was last changed in October 2025; the 1918 text it wraps doesn't change.
What does it do?
The SKILL.md tells the agent when to apply the rules and lists them all, so the agent can work from the summary and open the full book only when it needs detail. Its test for when to use it: "If you're writing sentences for a human to read, use this skill."
When to use it, per the skill:
- Documentation, README files, technical explanations
- Commit messages, pull request descriptions
- Error messages, UI copy, help text, comments
- Reports, summaries, or any explanation
- Editing to improve clarity
The 18 rules, grouped as in the skill. The first seven are "Elementary Rules of Usage" (grammar and punctuation): possessives, the serial comma, commas around parenthetic expressions, a comma before a conjunction joining clauses, no comma splices, no sentence fragments, and dangling participles.
The other eleven are "Elementary Principles of Composition." The skill puts six of them in bold:
| Rule | In the skill |
|---|---|
| 10 | Use active voice |
| 11 | Put statements in positive form |
| 12 | Use definite, specific, concrete language |
| 13 | Omit needless words |
| 16 | Keep related words together |
| 18 | Place emphatic words at end of sentence |
The rest cover one paragraph per topic, topic sentences, avoiding strings of loose sentences, parallel form, and keeping one tense in summaries. A final section, "Words and Expressions Commonly Misused," is an alphabetical usage reference.
What's in the folder?
Two files:
SKILL.md: when to use the skill, the rule list and the limited-context strategy.elements-of-style.md: the complete 1918 text, converted to Markdown from Project Gutenberg #37134, with each rule as a heading and Strunk's before-and-after examples.
The skill warns: "elements-of-style.md consumes ~12,000 tokens. Read it only when writing or editing prose."
What if context is short?
The skill's limited-context strategy has three steps: write the draft using judgment, dispatch a subagent with the draft and elements-of-style.md, and have the subagent copyedit and return the revision. That keeps the 12,000-token reference out of your main session.
How do you install it?
Claude Code, through the Superpowers marketplace. The superpowers-marketplace README documents both steps:
/plugin marketplace add obra/superpowers-marketplace
/plugin install elements-of-style@superpowers-marketplace
Claude Code's plugin docs explain that /plugin install opens the plugin's details so you can choose a scope (you, the project, or you in this repo only), and that plugin skills show up as /<plugin>:<skill>, so this one is /elements-of-style:writing-clearly-and-concisely.
The repo's own Claude Code install doc uses obra/elements-of-style as the marketplace source. On 24 October 2026 that address returned a 404 on GitHub (the repo is named the-elements-of-style), so use the Superpowers marketplace route above.
Codex, Cursor and others. The repo ships manifests for Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, OpenCode, Pi, Devin, Kimi Code, Hermes and others, with a short install doc for each under docs/install/. For Codex it says to open /plugins from the CLI or the app's plugin sidebar; for Cursor, run /add-plugin from Agent chat. Our Codex skills and Cursor skills guides explain how each one finds skills.
Just the skill folder. With the skills CLI:
npx skills add https://github.com/obra/the-elements-of-style --skill writing-clearly-and-concisely
Add -g to install it for all projects instead of the current one.
How do you use it?
The skill is model-invoked, so the agent can pick it up whenever it writes prose. You can also name it. Example prompts (suggestions, not quotes from the repo):
Rewrite the README intro using the writing-clearly-and-concisely skill. Keep it under 120 words.Write the commit message for these staged changes. Apply Strunk's rules: active voice, no needless words.Review the error messages in src/errors.ts for clarity and suggest rewrites.Copyedit docs/getting-started.md with a subagent and the Elements of Style reference, then show me the diff.Which of Strunk's rules does this paragraph break?
Tips and limits
- The rules are from 1918. Some usage entries are dated, and Strunk wrote for essays, not API docs. Treat the composition rules (active voice, concrete language, omit needless words) as the core, and use your own style guide for terminology and formatting.
- It is about clarity, not tone. It won't remove phrasing that sounds machine-written; pair it with the humanizer skill if that's your concern.
- Watch the token cost. If the agent opens the reference for every small string, tell it to work from the rule list and save the full text for longer documents.
- No license file. The manifests say "Public Domain" and the README says the text is public domain, but there is no LICENSE file in the repo. Check the repo yourself before you redistribute it.
- Security audit. On 24 October 2026, the skills.sh page showed Gen Agent Trust Hub: Pass, Socket: Pass and Snyk: Pass. The skill is two Markdown files and runs nothing.
Save it in your Kipt library
The manifests declare the skill public domain, so keeping a copy is fine. In Kipt, open Skills and paste the folder's GitHub link; Kipt imports the SKILL.md and elements-of-style.md together. You can also drop the folder or a .zip. Kipt keeps your skills as Markdown in a private GitHub repo you own and installs them into Claude Code or Codex with one command:
npx skills add https://github.com/<you>/<repo>.git --all -g
A saved copy is a good place to add your own house rules on top of Strunk's. Kipt is not affiliated with Jesse Vincent or obra/the-elements-of-style.
Similar skills
- Humanizer skill: rewrites text that reads as AI-written.
- Writing guidelines skill: Vercel's skill that reviews prose against its writing handbook with file:line findings.
- Git commit skill: GitHub's skill for Conventional Commits messages, a natural pair for clear commit text.
- Internal comms skill: Anthropic's fixed formats for updates and newsletters.
- Superpowers skills: Jesse Vincent's main skills library for coding workflows.