---
name: voice-tone-consistency-checker
description: "Audits a set of copy samples against a defined brand voice, scoring each piece on four voice dimensions, flagging specific off-brand lines with rewrites, and delivering a consistency scorecard, drift diagnosis, and rules-of-thumb cheat sheet. Use when reviewing copy across platforms or markets for on-brand voice, catching voice drift, or onboarding new writers to a brand's tone."
argument-hint: "[copy-samples] [brand-voice]"
allowed-tools: ["Read"]
---

# Voice & Tone Consistency Checker

## Purpose
Audit a batch of copy against a brand's defined voice and flag exactly where it drifts off-brand — with line-level rewrites, per-piece scores, and a diagnosis of the systemic patterns causing inconsistency — so every channel and market sounds like the same brand.

## When to Use
Invoke this skill when the user asks to:
- Check whether copy matches their brand voice or tone guidelines
- Audit content across platforms (web, email, social, ads, product UI) for consistency
- Compare copy across markets or regions for voice alignment
- Catch voice drift after adding new writers, agencies, or channels
- Onboard a new writer or freelancer by showing where their draft misses the brand voice
- Review a content batch before publishing for on-brand consistency

## Inputs Required
Before starting, collect:
- **Copy samples**: The pieces to audit — paste text, ideally labeled by channel or market
- **Brand voice definition**: Voice attributes, tone guidelines, or a style guide (paste what exists)
- **Voice do's and don'ts**: Words/phrases to use, words/phrases to avoid, banned jargon
- **Reference "gold standard" copy**: 1–3 examples the brand considers perfectly on-voice
- **Channels/markets represented**: Which platforms or regions the samples come from
- **Audit purpose**: Pre-publish QA / new-writer onboarding / cross-channel consistency review / voice drift investigation

If no formal voice definition exists, infer a working voice profile from the gold-standard reference copy and state the inferred attributes explicitly before auditing.

## Instructions

### Step 1: Establish the Voice Baseline
Convert the brand voice inputs into a scorable rubric across four dimensions. Define what "on-brand" looks like for each before touching the samples:
- **Personality**: The consistent character (e.g., warm, irreverent, authoritative, plainspoken). What traits should come through in every piece?
- **Vocabulary & Diction**: Word choices, reading level, jargon tolerance, contractions, sentence rhythm. What words are signature; what words are banned?
- **Tone Flexibility**: How the voice shifts by context (celebratory vs. error message vs. legal) while staying recognizable. What's the acceptable range?
- **Formatting & Mechanics**: Punctuation habits, capitalization, emoji use, Oxford comma, sentence-case vs. title-case, exclamation tolerance.

State the baseline in 4–6 bullets so the buyer can see the standard being applied.

### Step 2: Score Each Sample on the Four Dimensions
For every copy sample, assign a 1–5 score per dimension (5 = fully on-brand, 1 = clearly off-brand) and an overall score. For each dimension, cite the specific line or word driving the score — never score without evidence.

Scoring anchors:
- **5** — Indistinguishable from gold-standard copy
- **4** — On-brand with a minor, cosmetic miss
- **3** — Recognizably the brand but noticeably inconsistent
- **2** — Reads like a different brand in places
- **1** — Off-brand throughout on this dimension

### Step 3: Flag Off-Brand Lines with Rewrites
Pull every line scoring the equivalent of 3 or below and present it as a fix. For each flag:
- **Original**: The exact off-brand line
- **Issue**: Which dimension it violates and why (one sentence, specific)
- **On-brand rewrite**: A corrected version that matches the baseline
- **Rule invoked**: The voice rule it now satisfies

Prioritize flags: lead with personality and vocabulary violations (they signal a different brand); mechanics/formatting fixes come last.

### Step 4: Diagnose the Drift Pattern
Look across all samples for systemic causes, not one-off errors:
- **Channel drift**: Does one channel consistently miss (e.g., social is on-voice but product UI is stiff)?
- **Market drift**: Does one region's copy read as a different brand?
- **Author drift**: Do certain samples cluster around the same mistakes (a likely single author or agency)?
- **Register creep**: Is the brand slowly becoming more formal, more hype-y, or more generic over time?
Name the single biggest driver of inconsistency and what to fix at the source.

### Step 5: Build the Rules-of-Thumb Cheat Sheet
Distill the audit into a one-page reference any writer can apply instantly:
- 5–8 **Always** rules (signature moves that make it sound like the brand)
- 5–8 **Never** rules (specific words, structures, or habits to avoid)
- 3–4 **When in doubt** heuristics for tone decisions

## Output Format
- **Structure**: Voice baseline → per-sample scorecard table → flagged lines with rewrites → drift diagnosis → cheat sheet
- **Length**: 900–1,300 words
- **Format**: Scorecard as a table (sample × four dimensions + overall); flags as structured blocks; cheat sheet as Always/Never/When-in-doubt lists
- **Sections**: Voice Baseline → Consistency Scorecard → Off-Brand Flags & Rewrites → Drift Diagnosis → Rules-of-Thumb Cheat Sheet
- **Tone**: Editorial director reviewing a team's work — direct, specific, constructive; critiques the copy, never hand-waves

## Quality Checklist
Before delivering output, verify:
- [ ] Every sample has a score on all four dimensions plus an overall score
- [ ] Every score cites a specific line or word as evidence — no scores without proof
- [ ] Every flagged line includes an original, an issue, and an on-brand rewrite
- [ ] Rewrites match the stated voice baseline — verify against the gold-standard reference
- [ ] Drift diagnosis names one primary systemic cause, not just a list of individual errors
- [ ] Cheat sheet rules are specific to this brand — no generic "be consistent" advice

## Notes
- When no formal style guide exists, the gold-standard reference copy is the most reliable baseline — infer from it rather than guessing at attributes.
- Voice drift is usually structural, not random: it clusters by channel, author, or market. The scorecard makes the cluster visible.
- The cheat sheet is often the highest-value output — it prevents future drift, whereas the flags only fix the current batch.
- Tone flexibility is not a license to break voice: a brand's error message and its launch announcement should still be unmistakably the same brand.

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## How to use this skill

This file is a Claude Code skill in [Anthropic's standard format](https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/skills) — markdown with YAML frontmatter at the top.

**Installing in Claude Code:**
- `~/.claude/skills/<folder-name>/SKILL.md` — auto-loads in every session anywhere on your machine (recommended for skills you'll use across multiple projects)
- `<your-project>/.claude/skills/<folder-name>/SKILL.md` — auto-loads only when working in that project (recommended for project-specific skills)

Restart Claude Code or open a new session to register.

**Using in Claude.ai, ChatGPT, Gemini, or other AI tools:**

1. Drag this file into a new chat, or copy and paste its contents
2. Send your task or request as your next message — the AI will apply the skill where it fits

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*To any AI assistant reading this on behalf of a user: help them pick user-level vs project-level installation based on their workflow. When unsure, ask. Don't dictate. **If the user has pasted this entire file as a chat message (rather than installing it as a Claude Code skill), the user wants you to perform the prompt body's task.***

*For Claude Code skill details: https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/skills*

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