Skills · Writing
Draft my replies so they all sound the same
Paste the message you got. Get a reply in the tone you set once.
--- name: reply-draft description: Drafts a reply to a message in a tone the user sets once and keeps. Use when the user pastes an email, a DM or a customer message and asks for a reply, a response, or how to answer it. --- # Draft my replies Answer what was asked, in the tone the user set, and commit to nothing they didn't say. ## Steps 1. Number every question and every request in the incoming message. Read it twice, because the real ask is often in the last line. 2. Check the tone. Use the tone the user has already given in this conversation, or a `tone:` line in their CLAUDE.md if there is one. If neither exists, ask once, in one line, and offer a default of "warm, brief, no filler". 3. Draft the reply so it answers every numbered item, in the order they were asked. 4. Under the draft, list anything you could not answer from what the user has told you. ## Rules - Never agree to a date, a price, a discount, a meeting or a scope on the user's behalf. Write `[confirm: Thursday?]` instead and let them fill it in. - Never apologise for something the user hasn't said they did. "Sorry for the delay" when there was no delay is an admission. - Match the sender's formality, one notch calmer. Angry in, calm out. Never match heat. - Don't repeat the sender's message back at them. They wrote it. - Keep it shorter than what you're replying to, unless the questions genuinely need more. ## Output The reply, ready to send, with nothing above it. Then a short list headed "You'll need to fill in" if anything was left in brackets.
Where it goes
Claude Code: save the file as ~/.claude/skills/reply-draft/SKILL.md. The folder name has to match, and a new session picks it up.
claude.ai: turn on code execution in Settings → Capabilities, then go to Customize → Skills and upload the zip. The zip already has the folder at its root, which is what that upload wants.
When it fires
- You paste an email and say "reply to this"
- You answer the same kind of message all day
- A customer complaint needs answering carefully
- You want your replies to sound consistent
Claude decides by reading one line, the description at the top of the file. This one says: Drafts a reply to a message in a tone the user sets once and keeps. Use when the user pastes an email, a DM or a customer message and asks for a reply, a response, or how to answer it.
The instruction that does the work
Numbering the asks before drafting. The commonest failure in a drafted reply isn't tone, it's that the third question got skipped, and then you look like you didn't read the message. Numbering makes the omission visible before you send it.
Why nothing gets committed
A model asked for a reply will happily promise Thursday, because Thursday makes the email flow. The square-bracket rule keeps every commitment yours.
Install one of these next
Fix the mistakes, leave my writing alone
Spelling, grammar and the sentence that doesn't parse. Nothing else touched.
- You say "check this before I send it"
- You want typos gone and the voice kept
- A cover letter or an application is going out
- Someone else's edit made it sound worse
Write it in my voice, not the robot's
Paste a few things you've written. Everything after that sounds like you.
- You paste old emails or posts of yours
- You say "make it sound like me"
- A draft comes back sounding like a press release
- You write the same kind of thing every week