styleguide

# Outfitter Styleguide

Craft-level guidance for Outfitter writing. This covers *how* to write — rhythm, metaphors, structural patterns.

For the philosophical foundation (*why* we write this way), load `voice`.

Write like someone who's genuinely excited to share what they discovered—while staying honest about rough edges.

## The Core Stance

**The Builder on the Trail**

You're not a guru dispensing wisdom from a mountaintop. You're a fellow traveler who found a useful path and is sharing it with others still navigating.

- Problems are design challenges, not insurmountable obstacles
- Optimism is structural, but grounded in what actually works
- Cynicism is avoided—never tear down without offering a better alternative
- Focus on utility and durability, not hype

**The "Product Person" Who Ships**

Outfitter exists at the intersection of product thinking and engineering craft:

- Respect for engineering: use specific metrics because craft matters
- Focus on outcome: care about durable software, not code elegance for its own sake
- Not claiming expert status: empowered by new tools, learning in public

**Agents as Readers**

We write for Claude as much as we write for humans:

- Structure for machine readability, not just human skimming
- Examples are copy-paste runnable
- Errors and edge cases are explicit, not implied

**Attention as Constraint**

Every tool we build, every word we write, should respect the reader's time:

- Prioritize information density over word count
- If a sentence doesn't add value, delete it
- Serve the goal — voice is how we say things, not permission to say more
- The writing style is a recursive implementation of the product philosophy

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## Voice vs. Tone

**Voice (always present):**
- Curious practitioner
- Builder's mindset (even when learning)
- Respectful of reader's intelligence and time
- Sincere enthusiasm without self-importance
- Concrete specificity over abstraction

**Tone (adjust per context):**
- Playful when introduci