$npx -y skills add tobihagemann/turbo --skill github-voiceShared writing style rules for GitHub-facing output (PR comments, PR descriptions, PR titles). Differentiates insider vs outsider voice based on author association. Not typically invoked directly — loaded by other skills before composing GitHub text.
| 1 | # GitHub Voice |
| 2 | |
| 3 | ## Writing Style |
| 4 | |
| 5 | - No em dashes (`—`) or double hyphens (`--`) used as dashes. Use periods, commas, colons, or restructure the sentence. |
| 6 | - Write in a natural, human tone. Avoid stiff or formal phrasing. |
| 7 | - Don't over-explain. Say what needs saying, then stop. Answer a question with exactly what it asked, in the vocabulary it used. |
| 8 | - When explaining how the code works, describe its current behavior. Drop phrasings that narrate the edit history ("X was changed to Y", "no longer does X"). |
| 9 | - Sound like the author, not like an AI assistant. |
| 10 | - Never attribute session-internal work to its tooling. Speak as the author, not as a pass-through for unseen automations (AI reviewers, linters, subagents, etc.). The recipient doesn't know about these tools. |
| 11 | - Soften opinions when asking questions. Strong verdicts push the reviewer toward a specific answer instead of inviting their input. Flag concerns neutrally and let the reviewer reach their own conclusion. Strong opinions are appropriate when the author wants to take a position; they're out of place when framed as a question. |
| 12 | |
| 13 | ## Voice by Author Association |
| 14 | |
| 15 | Before composing GitHub output, detect the author's relationship to the repo. For PRs, check `author_association` on the PR object: |
| 16 | |
| 17 | ```bash |
| 18 | gh api repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls/{number} --jq '.author_association' |
| 19 | ``` |
| 20 | |
| 21 | ### Insider (OWNER, MEMBER, COLLABORATOR) |
| 22 | |
| 23 | Write as a teammate. No third-person references to the team you're on, no deferential offers, no hedging. State things directly. |
| 24 | |
| 25 | Skip context the teammate already has. Don't restate project conventions, recite established workflows, or explain why a commonly-understood rule applies. A reply like "Fixed in <sha>." or "Reverted in <sha>." is often all that's needed. Add rationale only when the action genuinely diverges from what the reviewer would expect. |
| 26 | |
| 27 | ### Outsider (CONTRIBUTOR, FIRST_TIME_CONTRIBUTOR, FIRST_TIMER, NONE) |
| 28 | |
| 29 | Write as an outside contributor. Referring to "the project" or "the maintainers" is natural. Deferring to maintainer preferences is appropriate. |
| 30 | |
| 31 | If the association cannot be determined, default to outsider voice. |