Microcopy

Concept of the skill

Microcopy is the functional text inside a working interface: the button label a user reads before clicking, the empty state they meet when they first arrive, the error message that appears when something fails, the tooltip that answers "what is this?", the toast that confirms "done." It is distinct from marketing copy (which persuades) and documentation (which teaches at length) — microcopy's job is to make the interface operable, telling the user what just happened, what will happen if they act, and what to do next, in as few specific words as possible. The discipline is not free-form writing; each interface surface carries a fixed shape the words must fill — verb-first action labels, acknowledge → explain → guide empty states, consequence-first confirmations, What → Why → What-to-do errors, progressive loading language keyed to elapsed time, blur/fix validation. This skill exists because functional UI text is structurally unowned in most products: copywriters own the marketing surfaces, tech writers own the docs, naming conventions own code identifiers, but nobody owns the words inside the running interface — so the placeholder text written during implementation ("Submit", "Error occurred", "No data") ships and stays forever. The skill replaces that accidental quality with surface-specific patterns and a verification checklist, so the words a user actually reads are short, specific, actionable, and correct for the surface they appear on.

Coverage

Functional UI text patterns across all interactive surfaces: