Compound Writer

Use when scanning or cleaning prose for AI-generated residue (unsupported connective tissue, epistemic inflation, over-completed arguments, performed voice, formulaic structure, empty figurative language, stock phrasing, corporate abstraction, hedging, false enthusiasm): AI-smell cleanup, humanizing model-assisted prose, or pre-publication checks.

Use when the writer needs analogy options to explain an abstract or complex concept; ask for cw-analogy alone or with the concept to explain.

Use when checking whether the most important idea in a piece, section, paragraph, or sentence appears where it best serves the reader: BLUF checks, buried or misplaced ledes, slow openings, intro drift, or competing main ideas.

Use when the writer wants to explore ideas or surface raw material for a piece but has no specific idea yet.

Use when the writer wants reviewers to argue a draft out across multiple rounds, responding to each other until tensions resolve or reach acknowledged stalemate, rather than the one-pass synthesis of cw-panel.

Use when a draft needs developmental editing: a top-level diagnosis of argument, structure, stakes, evidence, and payoff, or substantial restructuring before sentence polish.

Use when the writer asks to draft a piece or section from an outline, notes, source material, or partial prose, preserving their voice, thesis ownership, and source provenance.

Use when an open-ended writing outcome needs several Compound Writing skills composed together and no single skill covers it, such as cross-draft analysis, source-to-outline comparison, or multi-pass revision.

Use when the writer asks for a final pass, quality gate, or pre-publication check on a nearly complete piece and needs a clear ready, almost-ready, or needs-work verdict.

Use for a writing assistant's first conversation with a new owner: install the live Compound Writing skills, introduce the job in one line, learn what they write and for whom, set up the writing home, and start the first piece.

Use when a draft feels bloated or overwritten and needs ruthless cutting: flag adjectives, adverbs, qualifiers, and every word that does not earn its place, and kill darlings.

Use when a piece needs a suspense and tension review: where is the bomb under the table, and what does the reader know that someone else does not?

Use when the writer needs 3 opening hook options tailored to the content; ask for cw-hook alone or with the topic or context.

Use when the writer has a specific idea to explore before outlining and needs their own thinking drawn out and organized, without the bot supplying meaning, stakes, or an argument.

Use when structure is stable and the writer asks for a line edit, polish, tightening pass, or usable rewrite at the sentence and word level that preserves voice, meaning, source accuracy, and useful weirdness.

Use when checking where writing loses the general reader, read from a loving, supportive, but not-quite-getting-it perspective.

Use when a later draft needs the meanest, least-charitable read: challenge every claim, question every assumption, and poke holes in the logic.

Use when the writer wants the counterarguments, objections, and 'yeah buts' a reader might raise against the argument, so they can address resistance before it derails the piece.

Use when beginning or refreshing the VOICE.md, STYLE.md, and optional AUDIENCE.md guides in a writer's writing home from a short conversation, existing writing, or maintained context.

Use when interview material or notes need organizing into a detailed structure with the 10%/30% framework, typically after cw-interview.

Use when a draft should be reviewed by a panel of reviewer lenses from multiple perspectives, with their feedback synthesized into consensus findings, productive tensions, and prioritized recommendations.

Use when the writer needs 3 promise options that create anticipation for what the piece will deliver; ask for cw-promise alone or with the topic or context.

Use when copy needs a cold read from an intended reader meeting it for the first time: fresh-eyes reviews, reader-journey checks, or finding confusing language, missing setup, assumed knowledge, trust-eroding moments, and stopping points.

Use when the writer asks to save, remember, or codify a confirmed writing preference, editorial lesson, recurring failure pattern, or workflow improvement into the right durable context file.

Use when the writer wants to start, continue, finish, or improve a piece and has not named a more specific skill; routes open-ended writing work through the smallest useful Compound Writing workflow.

Use when writing feels too serious or flat and needs the funny found: moments that could be mined for humor, absurdity, specificity, or self-deprecation.

Use when cw-scribe finds a first-time writer with no established writing context, or when the writer asks to set up, scaffold, initialize, or migrate a writing home with VOICE.md, STYLE.md, examples/, and drafts/.

Use when complex text needs rewriting in plainer language; ask for cw-simplify alone or with the text.

Use when a piece feels slow and needs a pacing and momentum check: is there enough forward motion, or is it standing still instead of walking and talking?

Use before running any cw-* writing skill, at the start of a writing session, or when asked to update Compound Writing: makes sure the live EveryInc/compound-writing clone is present and current, and maps its Claude/Codex conventions to this bot.

Use when the writer needs 3 sharp, arguable thesis options tailored to the content; ask for cw-thesis alone or with the topic or context.

Use when writing shows its tracks (scaffolding, throat-clearing, process narration, arrival sequences) that should be erased now that the destination is clear.

Use when the writer needs 3 context-aware transition options between sections; ask for cw-transition alone or with which sections to bridge.

Use when the writer asks whether text sounds like them, feels generic, or has drifted from an established voice; diagnose the match against their voice context, then offer a closer revision.

Use when a piece feels technically fine but lifeless and needs a structural gut-check against Vonnegut's 8 rules for writing.