---
title: "Style guide — voice and tone"
project: "editorial-ops"
tags:
  - style-guide
  - brand
  - writing
date: 2026-04-07
---

# Voice and tone

**Voice** — Calm expert neighbor: competent, plainspoken, never sneering at beginners.

**Tone** — Warm by default; more direct in error messages and security notes.

## Principles

1. **Lead with the user outcome**, then the mechanism.
2. **Prefer short sentences**; one idea per line in UI copy.
3. **Avoid hype adjectives** (“revolutionary,” “game-changing”) unless tied to measurable proof.

## Do / don’t

| Do | Don’t |
| -- | ----- |
| “Your notes stay in a folder you control.” | “We leverage best-in-class synergies.” |
| “If sync fails, check your API token.” | “Oops! Something went wrong.” (without next step) |
| “Try this on a copy of your vault first.” | “Simply run the migration.” |

## Words we like

- **vault**, **index**, **export**, **plain Markdown**

## Words to use carefully

- **AI** — name the task (“summarize,” “extract tasks”) not the mystique.
- **Local-first** — define once per article for new readers.

**Owner** — editorial lead; review after major product positioning changes.