copy-editing

Trigger phrases

Phrases that activate this skill when typed to Claude Code:

• edit this copy
• tighten this up
• polish this
• copy sweep
• this content is outdated

What it does

copy-editing is a Claude Code skill from Corey Haines’s marketing-skills repo. It turns Claude into a copy editor who runs systematic, focused passes on existing copy — clarity, voice, specificity, scannability, freshness — instead of producing one mushy “improved” version. The skill activates when you mention “edit this copy”, “polish this”, “tighten this up”, or “this content is outdated”.

The output of a session is the copy with tracked edits per pass: clarity pass (cut fluff, fix ambiguity), voice pass (consistent tone, contractions), specificity pass (numbers and proof), scannability pass (subheads, bullets, paragraph breaks), and freshness pass (dates, broken claims, outdated examples).

When to use it

Reach for it when:

• You have a draft you mostly like and don’t want a stranger’s complete rewrite
• You’re refreshing old content and need a structured sweep, not a full audit
• A teammate’s copy is “almost there” and needs a finishing pass

When not to reach for it:

• The piece needs to be reconceived from scratch — that’s copywriting, not editing
• You want big-picture structural feedback; this is line-level work

Install

The skill is distributed via Corey Haines’s marketing-skills repo. Install via the repo’s recommended path — copy the copy-editing SKILL.md into your project’s .claude/skills/copy-editing/ directory, or use the repo’s plugin install if you’ve set it up.

Once installed, the skill activates on the trigger phrases above. The first time it runs, it will check for .agents/product-marketing-context.md (or .claude/product-marketing-context.md) — populating that file with your product context first dramatically improves output quality across all of Haines’s marketing skills.

What a session looks like

A typical session has three phases:

1. Pass selection. Pick which passes apply — clarity, voice, specificity, scannability, freshness. You can run all five or just the one you need.
2. Per-pass edits. Each pass runs in isolation with its own rule set. You see what changed and why, not a black-box “improved” output.
3. Final read-aloud check. The skill flags sentences that fail the spoken-aloud test (jargon, run-ons, unintended formality).

The discipline that makes it work: pass isolation. Editing for clarity and voice in the same pass produces compromises on both; running them separately keeps each rule-set clean.

Receipts

Honest reporting on what copy-editing produces and where it has limits:

Where it works well:

• The freshness pass catches “since 2022” stats that should now read “since 2024” — humans miss these constantly
• Specificity pass forces real numbers in places where vague claims used to live
• Scannability pass produces dramatic readability gains on dense pages without losing content

Where it backfires:

• It preserves your voice; if your voice is the problem, the edit looks like polishing wrong copy
• On highly stylized writing the rule-driven passes can flatten interesting moves

Pattern that works: run the freshness pass on every page once a quarter and the full five-pass sweep before any major launch or campaign reuses the copy.

Source and attribution

Originally written by Corey Haines. The canonical SKILL.md and any supporting files live in the copy-editing folder of his marketing-skills repository.

License: MIT. You can install, adapt, and redistribute the skill, with attribution preserved.

This page documents the skill from a practitioner’s perspective. For the formal spec and any updates, defer to the source repo.