skills/legaldesign/references/copy.md

# Copy

Use plain, factual language suited to the reader. Explain the supplied work; do not sell the artifact or perform a writing style.

## Surface

Lead with a descriptive title, concrete question, or factual statement: “Board approval,” “Who can appoint the director?” or “Approval requires both stockholders.” An optional subtitle adds necessary context. No decorative eyebrow, kicker, slogan, promotional hero, or metaphor.

Prefer short active sentences with one idea and specific referents. Define unfamiliar terms; preserve meaningful conditions, exceptions, uncertainty, dates, and units. Keep lists parallel. Do not force every heading into a punchline or repeat a long claim as a figure title.

Overview topics and contents labels use two to five recognizable words, such as “Affiliate use” or “Outside-customer approval,” not a full paragraph or generic “More.” A supporting line may explain what the topic resolves. Use the same topic name at its destination. Keep axis labels, amounts, section references, and page position beside the information they identify; they are not decorative headings.

## Detail and actions

A popup title names the explanation, item, or source promised by its trigger. Its introduction and sections add the mechanism, support, or qualification rather than repeating the headline. Distinguish exact quotation from commentary and use enough text to preserve meaning.

Link phrases are short, descriptive, and predictive: “Approval conditions,” “Read § 3.1,” or “Original licence.” Do not underline a whole introduction or use “click here,” raw URLs, arrow decoration, generic Evidence badges, or repeated source rows. Source presentation follows [evidence.md](evidence.md).

Decision labels state actual choices when “Yes” or “No” would be ambiguous. Template placeholders describe the required content, such as “Name the approval required before closing,” rather than empty braces or realistic invented client facts. Runtime control labels are fixed in [component-grammar.md](component-grammar.md).

## Final pass

Read the text without the graphics: is the subject, answer, limitation, and next action clear? Then read it with the graphics: remove redundant narration while retaining labels needed to interpret the relationship. The result should sound like a professional explanation, not an advertisement for the skill.

Inspect rendered figure and source-preview headings too: they come from `units[].claim`. Replace internal IDs, building instructions, and generic labels about the artifact with concise names for the relationship or source passage.