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Guideline Generation

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Transform brand materials into actionable voice guidelines.

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Free · Opens the source repo

What Guideline Generation does

The Guideline Generation skill is designed to help users create comprehensive brand voice guidelines by synthesizing various source materials. It can process brand documents, sales call transcripts, discovery reports, and direct user input to generate structured guidelines that reflect a brand's voice and tone. This skill is particularly useful for marketers, brand strategists, and content creators who need to ensure consistency in messaging across different platforms and contexts.

The skill operates through a defined workflow that begins with identifying and classifying the sources provided by the user. If no sources are available, it can check for previous discovery reports or suggest running a discovery first. Once the sources are identified, the skill delegates the heavy lifting of document and conversation analysis to specialized agents, extracting key voice attributes, messaging themes, and tone guidance. This structured approach allows for a thorough analysis of brand materials, ensuring that the resulting guidelines are well-informed and actionable.

The generated guidelines include essential components such as a "We Are / We Are Not" table that captures the core brand identity, a voice constants vs. tone flexes section that clarifies what remains fixed versus what adapts based on context, and a tone-by-context matrix that provides examples of how tone should vary in different scenarios. Each section is assigned a confidence score based on the number of corroborating sources, helping users understand the reliability of the information presented.

Additionally, the skill surfaces open questions for any ambiguities that arise during the generation process, ensuring that users can address potential gaps in their understanding. With built-in privacy measures, the skill also anonymizes sensitive information, making it suitable for use in various professional settings where confidentiality is paramount.

When to use it

Use this skill when you need to generate brand guidelines from various documents, transcripts, or user input, especially when consolidating information from multiple sources.

When not to use it

This skill may not be suitable for users looking for a quick, generic style guide without the need for in-depth analysis or those without sufficient source materials.

What you can build with it

Creating a New Brand Identity

When launching a new product, use this skill to synthesize existing materials and establish clear brand voice guidelines.

Refining Existing Guidelines

If you have outdated brand guidelines, input recent sales call transcripts to update and enhance your brand voice.

Preparing for a Marketing Campaign

Before a campaign, generate a style guide that reflects your brand's voice based on insights from discovery reports.

How to install Guideline Generation

View source

1. Install with the skills CLI

npx skills add anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins/guideline-generation --agent claude-code

2. Or install it manually

Download the skill folder and drop it into ~/.claude/skills/ for all projects, or .claude/skills/ to scope it to one repo. Restart Claude Code so it picks up the new skill.

Anthropic's agentic coding CLI, and the reference implementation of Agent Skills. Drop a skill folder into ~/.claude/skills and Claude Code loads it automatically whenever a task matches the skill's description. Claude Code docs

Inside SKILL.md

Written by anthropics

Guideline Generation

Generate comprehensive, LLM-ready brand voice guidelines from any combination of sources — brand documents, sales call transcripts, discovery reports, or direct user input. Transform raw materials into structured, enforceable guidelines with confidence scoring and open questions.

Inputs

Accept any combination of:

  • Discovery report from the discover-brand skill (structured, pre-triaged)
  • Brand documents uploaded or from connected platforms (PDF, PPTX, DOCX, MD, TXT)
  • Conversation transcripts from Gong, Granola, manual uploads, or Notion meeting notes
  • Direct user input about their brand voice and values

When a discovery report is provided, use it as the primary input — sources are already triaged and ranked. Supplement with additional analysis as needed.

Generation Workflow

1. Identify and Classify Sources

Determine what the user has provided. If no sources are available:

  • Check if a discovery report exists from a previous /brand-voice:discover-brand run
  • Check .claude/brand-voice.local.md for known brand material locations
  • Suggest running discovery first: /brand-voice:discover-brand

2. Process Sources

For documents: Delegate to the document-analysis agent for heavy parsing. Extract voice attributes, messaging themes, terminology, tone guidance, and examples.

For transcripts: Delegate to the conversation-analysis agent for pattern recognition. Extract implicit voice attributes, successful language patterns, tone by context, and anti-patterns.

For discovery reports: Extract pre-triaged sources, conflicts, and gaps. Use the ranked sources directly.

3. Synthesize Into Guidelines

Merge all findings into a unified guideline document following the template in references/guideline-template.md. Key sections:

"We Are / We Are Not" Table — The core brand identity anchor:

We AreWe Are Not
[Attribute — e.g., "Confident"][Counter — e.g., "Arrogant"]
[Attribute — e.g., "Approachable"][Counter — e.g., "Casual or sloppy"]

Derive attributes from the most consistent patterns across sources. Each row should have supporting evidence.

Voice Constants vs. Tone Flexes — Clarify what stays fixed and what adapts:

  • Voice = personality, values, "We Are / We Are Not" — constant across all content
  • Tone = formality, energy, technical depth — flexes by context

Tone-by-Context Matrix:

ContextFormalityEnergyTechnical DepthExample
Cold outreachMediumHighLow"[example phrase]"
Enterprise proposalHighMediumHigh"[example phrase]"
Social mediaLowHighLow"[example phrase]"

4. Assign Confidence Scores

Score each section using the methodology in references/confidence-scoring.md:

  • High confidence: 3+ corroborating sources, explicit guidance found
  • Medium confidence: 1-2 sources, or inferred from patterns
  • Low confidence: Single source, inferred, or conflicting data

5. Surface Open Questions

Generate open questions for any ambiguity that cannot be resolved:

## Open Questions for Team Discussion

### High Priority (blocks guideline completion)
1. **[Question Title]**
   - What was found: [conflicting or incomplete info]
   - Agent recommendation: [suggested resolution with reasoning]
   - Need from you: [specific decision or confirmation needed]

Every open question MUST include an agent recommendation. Turn ambiguity into "confirm or override" — never a dead end.

6. Quality Check

Before presenting, verify via the quality-assurance agent (defined in agents/quality-assurance.md):

  • All major sections populated (including Brand Personality and Content Examples if sources support them)
  • At least 3 voice attributes with evidence
  • "We Are / We Are Not" table has 4+ rows
  • Tone matrix covers at least 3 contexts
  • Confidence scores assigned per section
  • Source attribution for all extracted elements
  • No PII exposed
  • Open questions include recommendations

7. Present and Offer Next Steps

Summarize key findings:

  • Total sections generated with confidence breakdown
  • Strongest voice attribute and most effective message
  • Number of open questions (if any)

8. Save for Future Sessions

The default save location is .claude/brand-voice-guidelines.md inside the user's working folder.

Important: The agent's working directory may not be the user's project root (especially in Cowork, where plugins run from a plugin cache directory). Always resolve the path relative to the user's working folder, not the current working directory. If no working folder is set, skip the file save and tell the user guidelines will only be available in this conversation.

  1. Resolve the save path. The file MUST be saved to .claude/brand-voice-guidelines.md inside the user's working folder. Confirm the working folder path before writing.
  2. Check if guidelines already exist at that path
  3. If they exist, archive the previous version: Rename the existing file to brand-voice-guidelines-YYYY-MM-DD.md in the same directory (using today's date)
  4. Save new guidelines to .claude/brand-voice-guidelines.md inside the working folder
  5. Confirm to the user with the full absolute path: "Guidelines saved to <full-path>. /brand-voice:enforce-voice will find them automatically in future sessions."

The guidelines are also present in this conversation, so /brand-voice:enforce-voice can use them immediately without loading from file.

After saving, offer:

  1. Walk through the guidelines section by section
  2. Start creating content with /brand-voice:enforce-voice
  3. Resolve open questions

Privacy and Security

Enforce these privacy constraints throughout the entire generation workflow, not only at output time:

  • Redact customer names and contact information from all examples
  • Anonymize company names in transcript excerpts if requested
  • Flag any sensitive information detected during processing

Reference Files

  • references/guideline-template.md — Complete output template with all sections, field definitions, and formatting guidance
  • references/confidence-scoring.md — Confidence scoring methodology, thresholds, and examples

Frequently asked questions about Guideline Generation

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