Glossary

Definitions for terms used throughout the Writing Style Library. Terms are grouped by category; cross-references link to fuller explanations elsewhere in the docs.

Core taxonomy terms

Axis - One of the four orthogonal dimensions of a writing instruction. The catalog has four axes: Voice (persistent identity), Tone (situational register), Style, and Format. Voice and Tone are closely related and are the most confusable pair, but they are modelled and validated separately. See The Four-Axis Model.

Voice - The persistent identity of the writer. Stable across contexts. Captures professional archetype, characteristic concerns, and assumed reader. Lives in taxonomy/voices/.

Tone - Situational register layered on voice. Changes with context and message intent. Lives in taxonomy/tones/. Voice and Tone are separate axes with separate directories and separate schemas; the rule for telling them apart is that voice is what does not change and tone is what changes per piece.

Style - The cognitive and rhetorical pattern of the writing. How ideas are sequenced and structured. Lives in taxonomy/styles/.

Format - The visual and structural container. Defines headings, bullet depth, table layouts, section templates. Lives in taxonomy/formats/.

Entry - A single unit in the catalog. Lives in its own folder with an ENTRY.md file containing frontmatter and a Markdown body. See How to Add an Entry.

Composition terms

Composition - The act of combining one entry from each axis into a single structured prompt prefix. See Composing Instructions.

Composed instruction - The output of composition: a multi-section prompt prefix that can be prepended to any writing task. Each section is drawn from the matching entry’s llm_instruction_phrasing field.

Instruction prefix - The composed instruction as it appears at the top of a prompt, before the actual writing task. Synonymous with “composed instruction” in most contexts.

Recipe - A named, pre-validated combination of entries for a specific use case. Recipes live in recipes/ and ship with example output.

Example terms

Vertical slice - A single anchor topic rendered across many catalog entries. Lets a reader compare how the same situation reads through different voices, tones, styles, or formats. The catalog has twelve anchor topics (for example “Should we adopt async-first standups?” and “A hard year in review”); every stable entry renders across all twelve. Lives in examples/vertical-slices/<topic-slug>/.

Horizontal slice - A single combination of entries (a recipe) rendered across many topics. Lets a reader confirm that the recipe produces consistent output regardless of subject matter. Lives in examples/horizontal-slices/<recipe-id>/.

Diff pair - Two examples that differ on exactly one axis, holding the others constant. Used to teach the distinguishing power of a single dimension. Lives in examples/diff-pairs/.

Anchor topic - A topic chosen to be the basis of a vertical slice. Anchor topics should bend naturally to most voices in the catalog.

Cross-reference terms

pairs_well_with - Frontmatter field listing entry IDs that compose well with this entry. Used by the Composer to suggest likely good combinations.

avoid_with - Frontmatter field listing entry IDs that conflict with this entry or produce poor results when composed.

confusable_with - Frontmatter field listing entry IDs commonly mistaken for this one. Each confusable entry should have a corresponding “Often confused with” section in the entry body explaining the functional difference.

Authoring and process terms

Atomic-folder pattern - The convention that each entry lives in its own folder (taxonomy/<axis>/<id>/) rather than in a flat file or a YAML monolith. Allows examples, variants, and assets to be co-located with the entry.

Frontmatter - The YAML block at the top of every ENTRY.md file, delimited by --- lines. Contains the entry’s metadata and is validated against an axis-specific JSON Schema.

Review status - The lifecycle state of an entry. Progression: draft -> reviewed -> stable -> reference-quality. New entries start at draft. Promotion requires maintainer review. A separate deprecated state marks superseded entries. See Contribution Process.

Tooling terms

validate.py - The Python script that runs the seven catalog checks: slug format, ENTRY.md presence, frontmatter parsing, JSON Schema validation, cross-reference integrity, em-dash/en-dash linting, and draft-status warnings. Must pass before any commit.

build-indexes.py - The Python script that generates taxonomy.json (machine-readable index) and docs/reference/index.md (human-readable entry table) from all ENTRY.md files.

Schema - A JSON Schema file in schemas/ defining the required and optional frontmatter fields for an axis. Schemas extend the universal base schema via allOf.

Diataxis - The documentation framework that distinguishes tutorial, how-to, reference, and explanation modes. The diataxis-explanation style entry is named for this framework.
NN/g tone profile - The Nielsen Norman Group’s classification of tone into funny | neutral | serious. Used in the nn_g_profile field of tone entries.
Toulmin argument - The structure of claim, grounds, warrant, and rebuttal used by the classical-argument style entry.