microcopy
Microcopy
Coverage
Functional UI text patterns across all interactive surfaces:
- Button labels — verb-first, specific action, max 3 words; never generic ("Submit", "OK", "Yes", "Continue")
- Empty states — three-part structure: acknowledge → explain → guide, with one primary action
- Tooltips — one sentence, no terminal period, answers "what is this?"
- Confirmation dialogs — state the consequence first, name the action in the button, always provide an escape
- Placeholder text — example format not instruction; never the only label for a field
- Loading and progress messages — progressive disclosure: nothing → spinner → skeleton → message → reassurance, by elapsed time
- Error / success / warning messages — three-part What → Why → What-to-do structure with blame-free framing
- Inline form-validation messages — appear on blur, disappear on fix, specific not generic
- Toast / snackbar messages — action plus context, undo for reversible actions, auto-dismiss after 5 seconds, max 2 lines
- Permission request copy — explain why before asking
- Onboarding step copy — one action per step, progressive disclosure, time-honest
Philosophy
More from jacob-balslev/skills
layout-composition
Use when deciding responsive page or screen structure: section order, scan pattern, grid/flex composition, breakpoints, viewport hierarchy, responsive media, and density. Do NOT use for user-goal decomposition (use `task-analysis`), navigation taxonomy (use `information-architecture`), visual polish (use `visual-design-foundations`), or component/token contracts (use `design-system-architecture`).
8context-graph
Use when designing or auditing the multi-graph context architecture of an AI-coding workspace: skill graph, document routing graph, memory index, script registry, and the cross-graph edges between them. Covers edge typing, orphan detection, connectivity health, deterministic graph synthesis signals, change-propagation checks, and drift or hub-and-spoke anti-patterns. Do NOT use for authoring one SKILL.md (use `skill-scaffold`), validating one skill (use `graph-audit`), live routing decisions (use `skill-router`), context-window budgeting (use `context-window`), or session load/drop choices (use `context-management`).
8visual-design-foundations
Use when designing or auditing visual craft: color palette, typography, spacing, elevation, rhythm, density, visual hierarchy, brand fit, contrast intent, and motion feel. Do NOT use for sign-system meaning (use `semiotics`), token/component architecture (use `design-system-architecture`), responsive structure (use `layout-composition`), or accessibility compliance (use `a11y`).
7project-knowledge-extraction
Use when extracting durable project knowledge from code, docs, issues, incidents, reports, screenshots, or conversations into reusable context such as skills, ADRs, glossaries, context docs, or memory. Do NOT use for writing a new skill contract (use `skill-scaffold`), maintaining library tooling (use `skill-infrastructure`), or generic documentation polish (use `documentation`).
6problem-framing
Use when a team is converging on solutions before agreeing on the problem, when a brief reads as a feature request, when symptoms and root needs are tangled, or when assumptions need surfacing before design work proceeds. Do NOT use for code-level bug triage, runtime failure diagnosis, or root-cause analysis of system errors — those are engineering investigation tasks, not design problem framing.
6ai-native-development
Use when reasoning about agent autonomy levels, designing auto-improve loops, evaluating AI-generated code quality, or measuring agent productivity in an LLM-assisted codebase. Covers Karpathy's three eras of software (1.0 explicit / 2.0 learned / 3.0 natural-language), the vibe-coding-vs-agentic-engineering distinction, the 0–5 autonomy slider with task-type recommendations, the one-asset / one-metric / one-time-box AutoResearch loop, Software 3.0 productivity metrics, and the documented quality regressions of ungated AI-generated code (the 'vibe hangover'). Do NOT use for choosing a specific autonomy-loop topology (use `agent-engineering`), for the per-prompt authoring discipline (use `prompt-craft`), or for reviewing the AI-generated code that comes out of a Software 3.0 workflow (use `code-review`).
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