# Blog Voice > Ruben's writing voice for rubenmarcus.dev — blog posts, about, ai and agents pages. Use whenever writing or editing prose for this site. Enforced by scripts/text-gate.mjs (pnpm text:gate). - **Type:** Skill - **Install:** `agentstack add skill-rubenmarcus-portfolio-blog-voice` - **Verified:** Yes — security-reviewed for prompt injection and unsafe behavior - **Seller:** [rubenmarcus](https://agentstack.voostack.com/s/rubenmarcus) - **Installs:** 0 - **Category:** [Agent Skills](https://agentstack.voostack.com/c/agent-skills) - **Latest version:** 0.1.0 - **License:** MIT - **Upstream author:** [rubenmarcus](https://github.com/rubenmarcus) - **Source:** https://github.com/rubenmarcus/portfolio/tree/main/.claude/skills/blog-voice - **Website:** https://www.rubenmarcus.dev ## Install ```sh agentstack add skill-rubenmarcus-portfolio-blog-voice ``` Requires the [AgentStack CLI](https://agentstack.voostack.com/docs/cli). Works with Claude Code, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible agent. ## About # Blog voice — how Ruben writes Reference corpus: his LinkedIn articles (`~/Downloads/Basic_LinkedInDataExport_08-02-2026.zip`) and medium.com/@rubenmarcus. Read a real post before writing a new one. The site's posts are AI-assisted but must read as human, organic, written by the engineer who actually did the work. ## The five rules ### 1. Open with a concrete moment, not a framing Real openings by Ruben: > "Hoje mandei minha última submissão no leaderboard da Optimization Arena e meu nome estava no primeiro lugar." > "No dia 11 de maio de 2026, uma nova onda do Mini Shai-Hulud comprometeu pacotes npm e PyPI em um ataque de supply chain." > "No ano passado, tive minha fase 'degen' — foram três meses olhando gráficos..." Banned openings: "In the world of...", "AI is changing...", "I planned to write about X", "Have you ever wondered...", any rhetorical wind-up. Start with what happened, when, and the number. ### 2. Depth means implementation detail and scars Every technical claim must carry at least one of: a real number, a `file:line`/path, a command, a constraint, or a failure story. Explain *how the author thought*: what was tried first, what broke, what the measurement said, what got killed. A post without at least one "this failed and here's why" is superficial. Good: "One file, 200KB max. Only numpy, scipy, pymatching, and stim. Every decode finishes in 2.5 seconds or you get disqualified." Bad: "The constraints were challenging but we persevered." ### 3. Conclusions are lessons, not summaries Real closings: > "A lição aqui é bem direta: dependência não é só 'biblioteca'. É código de terceiro rodando dentro da sua máquina." End with what the reader should do differently, or what the author does differently now. Banned: restating the post, "the future is...", "and that's why X matters", any paragraph that starts by summarizing ("So,", "In the end,", "At the end of the day,"). ### 4. Sentence rhythm: short, declarative, no em-dashes - **Never use "—" (em-dash) or "–" (en-dash) as punctuation.** It is the single most recognizable AI tell. Use a period, a colon, or parentheses. (Travessão for dialogue in PT is fine but avoid it anyway.) - Short sentences. One idea per sentence. Contrast is allowed when grounded: "This isn't a physics story. It's an engineering one." - Self-deprecation is honest, not performative: "Eu sou um fullstack engineer que entrega apps em React." Never "I reread my own code and felt dumb" theater. - Talk about problems and defeats, but keep them technical or professional: failed generations, wrong thresholds, burned credits, dead ends. Never personal life: no layoffs, money, health, family. If a draft needs the personal story to make sense, find a different frame. - Explain jargon inline, casually: "a versão simples do jeito que eu entendi", "se você já sabe o que é X, pode pular essa seção". Apologize to experts playfully when simplifying: "Desculpa de antemão aos físicos de verdade." - Dry humor is fine when it's a fact, not a quip: "Um bom decoder é a diferença entre um computador quântico que funciona e um aquecedor caro." ### 5. Banned phrases and patterns (the gate enforces these) - "—" / "–" anywhere in prose (frontmatter included) - "the wrong question", "wrong question" framing - "But here's the thing", "Here's the kicker", "Plot twist" - "In conclusion", "In summary", "At the end of the day", "So there you have it" - "It's not X, it's Y" more than once per post - "game-changer", "delve", "landscape" (as metaphor), "supercharge", "unlock" - "Boring was the feature"-style aphorisms about the post itself - Version-number jokes, self-congratulation about honesty ("let me be honest", "full disclosure") - Exclamation marks in technical prose - Starting consecutive paragraphs with the same word ## PT-BR specifics - Natural Brazilian informal-professional. Loanwords stay when a dev would use them: leaderboard, submissions, score, hard cap, pipeline, runner, shippar, deploy, gate, harness, agents, evals. - Don't translate what no Brazilian dev translates; don't keep in English what everybody translates ("medidas", "erros", "cenários"). - PT is not a literal translation of the EN post. Same structure, same facts, re-thought in PT. ## Structure that works 1. Cold open: what happened, with the number. 2. Context section: explain the thing plainly ("Ok, primeiro: o que é isso?"). 3. Why it's harder than it looks: the constraints, enumerated. 4. The approach: how the author thought, step by step, with tools and commands. 5. What broke / what surprised: the scars. 6. The lesson: direct, actionable, short. ## The gate `pnpm text:gate` (scripts/text-gate.mjs) scans `src/content/blog/`, `src/content/blog-pt/`, `src/pages/about.astro`, `src/pages/pt/about.astro`, `src/pages/ai.astro`, `src/pages/pt/ai.astro`, `src/pages/agents.astro`, `src/pages/pt/agents.astro` for the banned patterns above and fails with file:line. Run it before considering any prose change done. ## Source & license This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code. - **Author:** [rubenmarcus](https://github.com/rubenmarcus) - **Source:** [rubenmarcus/portfolio](https://github.com/rubenmarcus/portfolio) - **License:** MIT - **Homepage:** https://www.rubenmarcus.dev Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above. ## Pricing - **Free** — Free ## Security capabilities Automated source analysis of v0.1.0 — what this tool can access: - **Network access:** no - **Filesystem access:** no - **Shell / process execution:** no - **Environment & secrets:** no - **Dynamic code execution:** no *"Yes" means the capability is present in the source — more access means more to trust, not that it is unsafe.* ## Versions - **0.1.0** — security scan: passed — Imported from the upstream source. ## Links - Listing page: https://agentstack.voostack.com/l/skill-rubenmarcus-portfolio-blog-voice - Seller: https://agentstack.voostack.com/s/rubenmarcus - Browse the marketplace: https://agentstack.voostack.com/browse --- Listed on AgentStack — the marketplace for AI agent skills and MCP servers. Every listing is security-reviewed. Creators keep 70%.