technical-article-writer
Write compelling technical articles and blog posts for developer audiences. Use this skill whenever the user asks to write a blog post, technical article, or any long-form technical content. Also trigger when the user says 'write about [technical topic]', 'help me draft an article', 'turn this into a blog post', 'write a post about', 'I want to publish something about', or mentions writing for a developer audience. Covers the full pipeline: idea sharpening, hook/title generation, article structure, body drafting, and editing. Even if the user just says 'I want to write about X' without specifying format, use this skill. Do NOT use for platform-specific optimization, newsletter strategy, or ghostwriting voice matching.
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/samber/cc-skills /tmp/technical-article-writer && cp -r /tmp/technical-article-writer/skills/technical-article-writer ~/.claude/skills/technical-article-writerSKILL.md
# Technical Article Writer
Write technical articles that developers actually want to read. This skill combines structural frameworks from technical writing, hook engineering from copywriting, and practitioner-tested patterns for developer content.
## Core philosophy
Most technical articles fail because of structural problems, not bad ideas: burying the lede, mixing content types, weak openings, no clear motivation, or trying to cover too much.
Developer audiences have a built-in BS detector. The best technical content leads with specificity and honesty. It sounds like a smart colleague explaining something interesting, not a marketer pitching. Acknowledge your expertise level, solve a specific problem, use real examples.
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## Workflow
Follow these phases in order. Each phase produces a concrete artifact the user reviews before moving on. **Phase 1 is mandatory — always ask the user the intake questions and wait for answers before writing anything.** If the user already provided some context, extract what you can and ask only about missing pieces.
### Phase 1: Idea sharpening (interview)
**Stop and ask.** Before writing anything, present the intake questions below to the user and wait for their answers. Do not skip this phase, do not infer silently, and do not start drafting until you have explicit answers or confirmation on every item. Ask the user (or extract from context and confirm):
1. **Topic**: What specific thing are you writing about?
2. **Objective**: What's the primary goal of this article? Use `AskUserQuestion` to present these options (push back if the user picks more than one — a single primary CTA converts far better than competing asks):
- Newsletter subscription / audience growth
- Personal branding / thought leadership / authority in a niche
- Product or service signup / free trial
- Direct purchase
- Lead generation (download, gated asset, whitepaper)
- Demo or sales call booking
- Community join (Discord, Slack, forum)
- Engagement (reply, share, comment, restack)
- Reader support (paid subscription, tip, sponsorship)
- No conversion goal (purely informational / educational)
The objective shapes the CTA, how much you give away vs. tease, and where conversion points sit. It will be passed directly to the `copywriting-cta` skill in Phase 5b.
3. **Audience**: Who reads this? (junior devs, senior engineers, CTOs, general tech, DBA, frontend developer...)
4. **Content type**: Which pattern fits? (see `references/article-structures.md` for full templates)
- The Bug Hunt / We Rewrote It in X / How We Built It / Lessons Learned
- Thoughts on Trends / Benchmark / Tutorial / Explainer
5. **Length target**: Short (800-1200), Medium (1500-2500), Long (3000+)
6. **One-sentence thesis**: The single claim or takeaway. If the user can't state this, help them.
If the user already provided most of this, extract from conversation and confirm. But if critical pieces are missing, **stop and ask before proceeding**. Don't guess at the audience, content type, or thesis. A wrong assumption here wastes an entire draft.
Specifically:
- If the topic is vague ("write about Java performance"), ask what specific aspect and what the reader should walk away knowing.
- If the audience is unclear, ask. A post for junior devs has a completely different structure than one for senior engineers.
- If you can't infer a thesis, ask the user: "What's the one thing you want the reader to remember?" If they can't answer, help them find it through questions about what surprised them, what they'd tell a colleague, or what they wish they'd known earlier.
- If the content type is ambiguous (could be a tutorial or an explainer), ask which experience the reader should have: following along hands-on, or building a mental model.
Only proceed to Phase 2 once you have enough clarity on topic, audience, content type, and thesis to write a coherent outline. It's cheaper to ask one question now than to rewrite 2000 words later.
**Idea quality filters.** Apply these before investing in a draft:
Julia Evans's heuristic: the best technical content comes from what you struggled with, not what you mastered. If the topic feels too "textbook", push toward the specific struggle, surprise, or counterintuitive finding.
Julian Shapiro's novelty filter. The idea should fit at least one:
- **Counter-intuitive**: "I never realized the world worked that way"
- **Counter-narrative**: "That's not how I was told it worked"
- **Shock and awe**: "I had no idea that was possible"
- **Elegant articulation**: "I always felt that way but couldn't put it into words"
- **Makes you feel seen**: "Finally someone gets my experience"
If the idea doesn't pass any filter, say so. Help the user find the angle that does.
### Phase 2: Title generation
Generate **10 title variants** using different hook strategies. Read `references/hooks-and-titles.md` for the full framework of 10 hook types and headline formulas.
Constraints for developer audiences:
- 7-12 words optimal for LinkedIn/B2B sharing
- Specificity over cleverness ("How to profile Go allocations with pprof" > "Mastering Go Performance")
- Numbers and data signal rigor
- Avoid superlatives ("ultimate", "complete", "everything you need")
- Technical keywords attract the right audience
- Cognitive dissonance creates curiosity without clickbait
Present 10 titles ranked by assessment, with a brief note on why each works. Let the user pick or remix.
### Phase 3: Hook and intro
**Delegate the hook to the `copywriting-hooks` skill.** Pass the topic, audience, language, content type, and length target from Phase 1. The skill will propose 3-4 hook options (2 candidates each) and wait for the user to pick. Do not write the hook yourself — let the skill run its full workflow.
After the user picks a hook, write the remaining intro (2-3 paragraphs) around it:
1. **Hook** (chosen by the user via `copywriting-hooks`)
2. **Stakes** (1-2 sentencComprehensive guide for building Chrome extensions with Manifest V3. Use this skill whenever the user mentions Chrome extension, browser extension, manifest.json, content script, service worker (in extension context), popup, side panel, chrome.runtime, chrome.tabs, chrome.storage, chrome.scripting, background script, MV3, Manifest V3, or any Chrome extension API. Also trigger when the user wants to inject scripts into web pages, communicate between page and background, bypass CSP from a content script, build an RPC layer over chrome messaging, or publish to the Chrome Web Store. Covers both new extension projects and adding features to existing ones. Do NOT use for framework-specific questions.
Conventional Commits v1.0.0 branch naming, worktree naming, and commit message standards for GitHub and GitLab projects. Use when creating branches, naming worktrees, writing commits, generating commit messages, reviewing branch conventions, or setting up changelog automation. Apply when your project needs consistent git history, SemVer-driven releases, parseable changelog generation, or automatic issue closing. Trigger when the user asks how to name a worktree, create a git worktree, or organize worktrees alongside branches.
Design end-of-article CTAs (calls-to-action placed at the bottom of blog posts, newsletters, essays, articles, or any long-form content). Use this skill whenever the user asks to write, design, review, or improve a CTA at the bottom of an article, blog post, or essay; mentions "end-of-post CTA", "bottom of the article", "call-to-action", "signup box", "newsletter CTA", "subscribe block", "what should I put at the bottom", "how do I get readers to subscribe / share / book a call / buy / follow / join / download"; or asks how to convert article readers into subscribers, leads, customers, community members, or supporters. Also trigger when the user wants A/B testing guidance or accessibility review for a CTA block. Covers independent / personal writing, newsletter publications, and brand / content-marketing blogs across any topic — tech, finance, food, climate, design, lifestyle, B2B, B2C. Produces both the copy (content) and the structural / visual design (form), matched to the user's objective and audience.
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Codifies how someone or a brand writes — prose mechanics (lexicon, syntax, rhythm, structure, signature moves) independent of emotional tone. Output: PROSE.md. Three modes: BUILD a fresh guide from SOUL.md + TONE.md + discovery interview; ADAPT an existing guide to a new channel; AUDIT a corpus for prose patterns before codification. Use when: writing rules for a content factory, codifying ghostwriting voice for multi-writer consistency, defining banned words and sentence-length targets, building a house style guide, reverse-engineering prose from a corpus, porting style across channels. Trigger on: PROSE.md, writing style guide, prose guide, house style, ghostwriter style, writing playbook, brand writing mechanics, signature moves. NOT for: writing actual content (→ linkedin-ghostwriting, technical-article-writer, press-release-writer), removing AI patterns (→ humanizer), tone decisions (→ copywriting-tone-of-voice), hooks (→ copywriting-hooks), CTAs (→ copywriting-cta).
Build a brand tone of voice guide (TONE.md) via discovery, voice definition, and channel modulation. Outputs voice attributes with do's/don'ts, NN/g positioning, tone modulation matrix, lexicon, mechanics, and channel rules — consumed by downstream content skills writing on-brand copy. Covers B2B SaaS, B2C/D2C, NGO, public sector, consulting, industrial, product-led, personal, and volunteering brands; researches uncovered contexts (politics, regulated niches, religious orgs, gaming) on demand. Also adapts an existing TONE.md to a new channel (blog → LinkedIn, web → Twitter/X, in-product UI). Optionally consumes SOUL.md to pre-fill brand identity. Apply when the user wants to create a TONE.md, define brand voice, port voice to a new channel, refresh an outdated voice, or set up a content factory writing across many supports. Not for writing individual posts, articles, emails, or UI strings (→ dedicated writing skills), nor SOUL.md, PROSE.md, DESIGN.md.
CRXJS Chrome extension development — true HMR for popup, options, content scripts, side panels, manifest-driven builds, dynamic content script imports (`?script`, `?script&module`), and `defineManifest` for type-safe manifests. Uses Vite as its build tool. Use when the user mentions CRXJS, crxjs, @crxjs/vite-plugin, 'extension with hot reload', 'HMR for chrome extension', or wants to set up a CRXJS-based Chrome extension project with any framework (React, Vue, Svelte, Solid, Vanilla). Also trigger when the user has an existing CRXJS project and wants to add features, fix HMR issues, or configure content scripts with CRXJS. For general Chrome extension architecture (messaging, CSP, storage, permissions) -> See `samber/cc-skills@chrome-extension` skill.
Deep research skill — broad parallel web searches, multi-source validation, confidence tracking, cited Markdown report. Supports 11 research types: market (TAM/SAM, segments, pricing, trends), domain (industry structure, ecosystem, regulatory landscape), technical (architecture, tools, benchmarks), competitive (competitor teardown, positioning, win/loss), product (feature analysis, reviews, roadmap signals), academic (literature survey, citation networks, key authors), person/org (due diligence on a company or public figure), financial (funding rounds, valuation multiples, revenue signals), legal (IP, patents, litigation, compliance), trend (emerging signals, foresight, scenario mapping), community (ecosystem health, key voices, governance, fragmentation). Use when asked to: 'research <topic>', 'deep dive on X', 'analyze the landscape', 'competitive analysis', 'compare these options', 'who are the players in Z', 'literature review', 'background on Y', 'what papers exist on X', 'product teardown', 'technology evaluation', 'regulatory overview', 'funding landscape', 'what trends are emerging in X', 'patent landscape', 'community health', or any request requiring scanning many sources and producing a cited written analysis. Apply whenever the deliverable is a thorough, sourced report rather than a quick answer. Trigger even when phrased casually: 'look into X', 'what's the deal with Y', 'dig into Z', 'I need to understand the space', 'catch me up on X'.