Agora

---
name: agora
description: Write, rewrite, shorten, critique, or plan argument-first marketing, sales, investment, scientific, technical, editorial, case-study, interface, and spoken content. Use for `/agora`; CTAs and microcopy; landing, product, comparison, onboarding, upgrade, and paywall screens; email and direct outreach; ads and social posts; fundraising, investor outreach, pitch decks, investment memos, diligence, and capital allocation; scientific communication, technical explanation, research communication, and science video scripts; customer success, creative portfolio, and technical implementation case studies; titles, descriptions, transcripts, captions, show notes, and companion pages. Also use when explicitly asked to inspect local publication artifacts for privacy metadata, hidden Unicode, or provenance.
---

# Maestro: Agora

## Accept direct invocation

Treat `/agora` as explicit activation. Use all text after the command as the task. If no task follows, ask for the asset or source material.

## Enforce immutable text rules

Never emit Unicode U+2014 anywhere in a response while this skill is active. This applies to ready copy, headings, lists, critique, notes, metadata, quotations, and source text. Replace it with a period, comma, colon, semicolon, parentheses, or plain hyphen as grammar requires.

If exact text contains U+2014, paraphrase it or state that it cannot be reproduced verbatim. Never alter a quotation and present it as exact.

Use straight ASCII quotation marks in generated text. Preserve curly quotation marks only inside exact immutable, legal, technical, code, identifier, or user-required text.

Before returning, scan the complete response character by character for U+2014. Replace every occurrence, scan again, and return only when the count is zero. Run the same final scan for generated U+2018, U+2019, U+201C, and U+201D outside allowed exact text.

## Load the small runtime first

For every writing task, read [references/agora-writing-runtime.md](references/agora-writing-runtime.md). It is the compact writing contract.

[references/human-voice-editing-reference.md](references/human-voice-editing-reference.md) is the single canonical authority for banned vocabulary, connectives, templates, significance tails, punctuation, prompt leakage, structural tells, author samples, meaning preservation, genre fit, detector limits, and privacy cautions. For ordinary writing, read `The Core Principle`, `Global Output Bans`, Sections 1 through 7, `Meaning-Preservation Gate`, `Calibrate to the Genre`, and `Common Humanizer Failure Modes`. Load its research, detector, privacy, and full workflow sections only when the task needs them. Its reusable prompt is an example and does not change Agora's ready-copy default.

Use [references/agora-marketing-runtime.md](references/agora-marketing-runtime.md) for ordinary `POSITION`, `SELL`, `INFORM`, and `TRANSACT` work.

Use [references/agora-conversion-runtime.md](references/agora-conversion-runtime.md) for landing pages, product pages, pricing pages, paywalls, checkout, forms, onboarding, upgrade paths, funnels, and conversion experiments.

Use [references/agora-case-study-runtime.md](references/agora-case-study-runtime.md) for ordinary customer-success, creative-portfolio, and technical-implementation cases.

The deep references remain available, but do not load them for ordinary drafting:

- [references/agora-marketing.md](references/agora-marketing.md): research-backed marketing guidance, source review, audits, and maintainer work.
- [references/agora-conversion.md](references/agora-conversion.md): conversion research, source review, experiment interpretation, and maintainer work.
- [references/agora-craft.md](references/agora-craft.md): research-backed headline, hero, awareness, emotion, and diagnostic rhythm guidance.
- [references/agora-science.md](references/agora-science.md): scientific findings, methods, statistics, systems explanation, engineering detail, implementation detail, technical evaluation, and technical audiences.
- [references/agora-case-studies.md](references/agora-case-studies.md): explicit case source, causality, attribution, permission, confidentiality, and technical review.
- [references/agora-invest.md](references/agora-invest.md): fundraising, investment evaluation, diligence, and capital allocation.
- [references/agora-voice.md](references/agora-voice.md): measured persistent profiles and voice checks.
- [references/agora-publication.md](references/agora-publication.md): explicit publication privacy and provenance audits.

Deep research is never required merely because the subject includes AI, software, data, security, engineering, or infrastructure.

## Select register and voice before planning

Resolve this order before outlining:

1. Host rules, exact source wording, required facts, names, numbers, quotations, conditions, and terms.
2. Deliverable, audience, genre, purpose, length, and message.
3. Register: `PLAIN`, `TECHNICAL`, `SCIENTIFIC`, `LEGAL_OR_COMPLIANCE`, or `AUDIT_OR_DILIGENCE`.
4. Measured persistent profile, task-only voice sketch, or plain professional default.
5. Primary job and publication surface.
6. Argument and persuasion choices.

`PLAIN` is the default for customer pages, company profiles, product copy, professional email, ordinary articles, executive summaries, interface copy, social posts, sales copy, and general-audience scripts.

Select `TECHNICAL` only when the deliverable needs documented system behavior, architecture, API behavior, engineering or implementation detail, technical evaluation, or a technical audience.

Select `SCIENTIFIC` only when the deliverable needs research findings, study design, methods, statistics, uncertainty, scientific explanation, or evidence grading.

Select `LEGAL_OR_COMPLIANCE` only when the task or immutable source requires legal, regulatory, contractual, or compliance language.

Select `AUDIT_OR_DILIGENCE` only when the requested deliverable is an audit, source review, diligence memo, investment review, or formal assessment.

Topic alone never selects a specialized register. A homepage for an AI, software, data, security, or infrastructure product remains `PLAIN` for a nontechnical reader.

Voice shapes expression from the first outline and sentence. It controls sentence construction, paragraph shape, vocabulary, directness, openings, endings, qualification placement, and rhythm. It never changes facts, names, numbers, conditions, quotations, certainty, legal wording, or required technical terms.

## Use two separate voice tiers

### Persistent measured profile

Resolve explicit, default, and disabled profile state before planning. Load [references/agora-voice.md](references/agora-voice.md) whenever a measured profile is built, applied, listed, or checked.

Profiles live at `~/.agora/voices/`, outside the replaceable skill directory. Build them with the shipped engine:

```text
npx -p @maestroagora/agora agora-voice build --name <slug> --from <path>
```

A file the engine did not produce is not a measured profile. Keep its 5,000-word certification floor, corpus safeguards, measurement pipeline, register matching, and phrase-overlap checks.

| Instruction | Persistent profile state |
|---|---|
| `--voice <name>` | Load that measured profile |
| `--no-voice` or `neutral` | Load no persistent profile |
| no instruction and a default exists | Load the default unless task samples replace it for this task |
| no instruction and no default exists | Use no persistent profile |

Measured sentence and paragraph distributions remain diagnostics. They are never drafting quotas. Do not lengthen, shorten, alternate, or reshape sentences merely to match a distribution.

### Task-only voice sketch

When authentic samples are supplied with the current task, make a hidden task voice sketch before planning. This sketch is not a measured profile and is never saved as one.

Use three to ten same-genre samples when available. With one or two samples, record only cautious local observations. Record observable habits only: sentence and paragraph range, fragments, contractions, person, punctuation, directness, warmth, humor, skepticism, qualification, openings, turns, endings, and avoided constructions.

Never claim authorship, identity, statistical matching, or author approval. Never copy distinctive phrases, examples, facts, metaphors, slogans, anecdotes, or subject matter. Never invent an idiolect, personality, biography, opinion, quirk, error, or slang.

When task samples and a default persistent profile conflict, use the task samples for same-genre local expression in this task and keep the persistent profile only for compatible stable habits. Follow an explicitly requested persistent profile. Do not merge samples from different people into one voice.

With no samples and no active measured profile, preserve credible choices in the supplied draft and use plain professional writing.

## Choose the job and surface

Select one primary job:

| Job | Use it for |
|---|---|
| `POSITION` | Company profiles, About copy, category narratives, website summaries, and objective descriptions |
| `SELL` | Marketing, sales, ads, landing pages, product pages, outreach, upgrades, and paywalls |
| `INVEST` | Fundraising, investment evaluation, diligence, and capital allocation |
| `INFORM` | Editorial, educational, scientific, and technical explanation |
| `TRANSACT` | Buttons, confirmations, alerts, forms, and utility text |

Directory placement or an investor-adjacent audience does not activate `INVEST`.

`SCIENCE`, `TECHNICAL`, `CASE_STUDY`, and `VOICE` are modifiers, not primary jobs. `SCIENCE` and `TECHNICAL` activate from the requested job and audience, not the subject category.

Examples include `INFORM + SCIENCE + CASE_STUDY`, `SELL + TECHNICAL`, `INVEST + SCIENCE`, `INVEST + CASE_STUDY`, and `INVEST + VOICE`. Academic and clinical case reports are outside `CASE_STUDY`.

Inside `INVEST`, use `FUNDRAISE` for a company seeking capital, `DILIGENCE` for an investor evaluating an opportunity, and `ALLOCATE` for comparing uses of capital. These are internal routes, not primary jobs.

Choose the surface separately:

| Surface | Treatment |
|---|---|
| `INDEXABLE_PUBLIC` | Written human-voice and relevant GEO/AEO passes |
| `PUBLIC_NON_INDEXABLE_WRITTEN` | Written structure and human-voice pass |
| `WRITTEN_PRIVATE` | Concrete meaning, channel fit, and human-voice pass |
| `SPOKEN_ONLY` | Breath, rhythm, timing, and listener comprehension |
| `HYBRID` | Route spoken delivery and each written derivative separately |

Apply search and technical publication checks only to indexable public work when the user requests publication readiness.

## Preserve closed-world facts

Treat the user's named product, offer, customer, result, route, price, permission, process, timing, legal, operational, and outcome facts as complete unless the user authorizes invention, fiction, assumptions, or gap filling.

Write only supplied facts and necessary logical consequences. Preserve exact qualifiers, roles, quote status, causal status, commitments, terms, routes, destinations, uncertainty, and required wording.

Never invent a name, figure, quotation, outcome, credential, permission, URL, product behavior, destination, or intermediate step. A request to write, rewrite, compose, or improve conversion does not authorize invention.

Prefer the supplied category noun and action verb when they precisely name the subject. Do not weaken `is an AI assistant` to `AI assistance`, change a named safety product into a generic barrier, or broaden a stated limitation.

When the user says every fact or limitation must survive, map each supplied item to visible wording before returning. A format fact, requested ending, cancel consequence, or negative product limit counts as material when the brief includes it.

Do not infer responsibility, a use case, a record field, a visible state, an intermediate process, or a broader absence from one supplied action or limitation. A person being able to revoke a code does not mean the revocation is recorded. A list of unmeasured outcomes does not mean nothing else was measured.

Apply fact checking, source review, claim review, permission review, disclosure review, compliance, legal review, or diligence only when the user asks. Keep private checks invisible in ordinary output.

## Draft for the reader

Build the smallest useful private path from the audience's situation to the next decision. Use only the moves the asset needs:

```text
situation -> stake -> useful difference -> how it works -> reason to believe -> next step
```

Do not expose this path as a template. Do not let internal research terms become customer copy.

Use one main point per ordinary sentence. Put the subject and action early. Split a sentence before adding another fact, caveat, explanation, and implication. Review sentences over 28 words and sentences with three or more joined clauses. A sentence may remain when a split damages meaning.

No instruction requires a 25-word sentence, a short sentence after a long one, a sentence-length distribution, paragraph variation, or artificial alternation.

Give each paragraph one job. Do not restate headings, force equal blocks, close every paragraph with a lesson, or add a recap that repeats the body.

For `PLAIN` output, keep control-room vocabulary backstage. Ordinary articles and customer copy should name the actual event, count, decision, source, or limit instead of saying `the evidence`, `the claim`, `the qualification`, or `the framework`. Retain one of those terms only when the subject, user wording, or reader genuinely needs it. Rewrite the whole thought in reader language instead of swapping one abstract synonym for another. Do not turn every paragraph into a statement about what can or cannot be concluded.

## Generate articles from the supplied material

For an article or long-form editorial request, use the existing brief, voice, argument, draft, and revision path. Before outlining, privately separate the user's required message and constraints from first-party observations, customer examples, numbers, events, decisions, failures, lessons, opinions, external sources, and voice samples. Keep straight who said what, what was counted, and what remains unknown. A voice sample supplies style habits, not article facts, unless the user also provides those facts for this article.

Choose the central reader question or tension from the brief. Put the most useful supplied detail near the point it explains. Let the strength and importance of the material determine section order and length. Do not default to three equal reasons, repeated section openings, or a conclusion that recaps every heading. Follow an outline, section order, or format the user explicitly requests. When headings are presented in a numbered instruction list, treat the numbers as list markers unless the user asks for numbered headings.

When the brief supplies a first-party event or decision, open the article with it or with the reader question it directly raises. Do not stage that material with an invented claim about what teams often or typically do. Show what happened, the detail that matters, what it means, and what to do next when the user asks for that. These are reasoning moves, not mandatory headings or a fixed paragraph formula. Prefer the user's experiences, opinions, constraints, and customer information over generic examples. Preserve whose experience, opinion, lesson, or recommendation it is. Do not turn a supplied recommendation into an unattributed command, a customer report into a measured result, or a possibility into an event.

For a sparse brief, make the clearest useful point the known facts allow. Do not invent a customer, first-person story, personal opinion, failure, quotation, precise event, study, statistic, or outcome to make the article feel specific. Use external facts only when supplied or when the user requests research and the sources support them. Explicitly authorized fiction or hypotheticals retain their existing route. In a first-party article, carry any supplied unmeasured outcome or negative limit into visible copy once when it bounds the conclusion; do not drop it for concision.

During revision, replace generic sentences with the user's concrete details, remove repeated points and empty transitions, and give the central idea enough room to develop. Do not invent a detail to fix a vague passage. Read the article as its intended reader: if it sounds like a legal brief, source review, or writing assessment, recast the passage in ordinary words while keeping every fact and condition. Trace the user's instructions, first-party material, required facts, length, structure, and active voice through the final article. Before returning an article, run the shipped `scripts/article-typography-check.mjs` on the final visible draft when Node is available. Resolve every generated U+2014 or U+2018 through U+201D finding, rerun the check, and preserve immutable source text. If Node is unavailable, scan the final string character by character. Keep this editorial work private and return the requested draft.

## Inspect publication artifacts only on request

Publication audit is a separate read-only workflow. Load [references/agora-publication.md](references/agora-publication.md) only when the user asks to inspect a local artifact before publication or sharing.

Use the shipped `scripts/publication-audit.mjs`. Never improvise a cleaner, strip Unicode by category, remove metadata, rewrite text to evade detection, or promise an AI-free, human-written, anonymous, clean, or safe result. Report `FOUND`, `NOT_FOUND_BY_THIS_CHECK`, `UNKNOWN`, and `ERROR` exactly as defined in the reference.

## Run silent final passes

Before returning:

1. Build a private requirement map for every fact, limitation, exact term, requested component, length rule, inclusion, and exclusion.
2. Compare every factual statement with the supplied facts and required wording.
3. Preserve all material conditions, uncertainty, attribution, names, numbers, dates, quotations, legal terms, and technical terms.
4. Trace every user-required fact and limitation to visible wording, including exact category nouns, action verbs, format facts, endings, and cancel behavior.
5. Rewrite the whole draft for first-read clarity.
6. Apply every mandatory rule from the canonical human-voice reference.
7. Run the control-word and added-pattern review from the compact writing runtime.
8. Review ordinary sentences over 28 words, joined clauses, repeated openings, noun stacks, preposition stacks, repeated paragraph shapes, false reframes, question-fragment theater, corporate helper phrases, and legalistic leakage.
9. Check task-sample phrase overlap and remove copied material.
10. For exact word-count work, use a counter when available and edit until the final integer matches.
11. Run the final U+2014 and generated smart-quote scans.

Never promise detector evasion or infer authorship. Never add fake errors, slang, anecdotes, or quirks. Never weaken factual fidelity or exact legal and technical language to sound more natural.

## Return the result

Return one ready-to-use result by default. Return only the requested deliverable and components.

Return finished copy, not a worksheet. Use labels outside the copy only when the user requests component fields or an implementation decision needs them.

Do not expose internal planning, register labels, mode labels, fact ledgers, source checks, reasoning, self-audits, change logs, confidence statements, or policy recaps. Do not append a rationale, evidence note, proof note, compliance note, recap, alternate route, or invitation to continue unless the user asks for it.

For critique-only work, lead with the most consequential actionable findings. When rewriting is authorized, lead with the finished revision.