technical-writing-ste

A Claude skill that writes and rewrites English technical content — documentation, how-to and setup guides, developer/API reference, technical emails, release notes and changelogs, in-product notifications, and error or status messages — in the spirit of ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English (Issue 9).

The idea: apply a controlled-language discipline — one meaning per word, active voice, simple tenses, short single-instruction sentences, no dropped words — so that a tired reader, a non-native speaker, a translation pipeline, or another system can parse your text correctly on the first read.

Not affiliated with ASD. This is an independent, unofficial tool. It does not reproduce the ASD-STE100 specification or its dictionary. See NOTICE.

Two modes

• Rewrite mode — give it existing text; it returns a before/after table naming the rule behind each change, then a clean version.
• Author mode — describe a goal; it writes finished text in the target style (numbered steps for a procedure, a normal email with greeting and closing, a short error message), with no comparison table.

The skill picks the mode from your request and formats the output to fit the content type.

What's inside

technical-writing-ste/
├── SKILL.md                     # the skill: modes, core rules, per-format guidance, process
├── references/
│   └── writing-rules.md         # the nine ASD-STE100 Issue 9 rule sections (paraphrased) + sources
├── examples/
│   └── before-after.md          # worked examples for both modes
└── evals/
    └── evals.json               # sample test prompts

Install

Clone into your Claude skills directory:

git clone https://github.com/avectats7/technical-writing-ste ~/.claude/skills/technical-writing-ste

Use

Trigger it by asking to write or clean up technical text, for example:

• "Rewrite this error message so it's less ambiguous: …"
• "Draft a release note: we're deprecating the v1 API, removed on Dec 1."
• "Write the setup guide for enabling webhooks."
• "Simplify this API description for non-native readers."

Scope

Built for: docs, guides, API/reference text, technical emails, changelogs, notifications, and error/status messages — anything a human or a machine must parse without a human to ask.

Not for marketing, landing-page, or other persuasive/creative copy — the style is deliberately flat and literal, which is the wrong tool where voice and nuance are the point.

Copyright and attribution

ASD-STE100® and Simplified Technical English are the property of ASD. This project describes the standard's rule categories in its own words and cites section/rule numbers as facts; it does not reproduce the specification text or the dictionary. The official standard is a free download from asd-ste100.org — use it as the source of truth for certified compliance.

Design initially derived from danyuchn/asd-ste100-skill (MIT), then substantially expanded. Full details in NOTICE.

License

MIT.