webkit-microcopy

Skill: webkit-microcopy

Purpose

Interface copy is part of the design system, not a per screen decision. When one screen says "Pick a workload" and the next says "Choose an application", when a label carries a warning that belongs in a message, or when an em dash splices two sentences inside a toast, the product reads as assembled by different people, and the reader pays for it with attention.

This skill fixes three things, in priority order:

1. Mechanics. Punctuation and capitalization are settled, not stylistic. The bans below are hard.
2. Placement. Every kind of copy has one surface that owns it. A label names an input; it never explains, warns, or gives feedback. Explanation comes before the input that needs it.
3. Terminology. One word per concept, across every surface where that concept appears.

Scope: strings the user reads inside Azion products. It does not govern docs, marketing pages, code comments, or commit messages. Copy is authored in English; translation follows the Azion brand glossary, and every rule here survives translation because none of it depends on a specific wording.

How to use

• /webkit-microcopy while building: apply the rules to every string you write, and place each string on the surface that owns it before styling anything.
• /webkit-microcopy <file|screen> as a review: walk the seven sections in order and report each violation as current → corrected, with the surface it should move to when placement is wrong.

Related: /webkit-ui-states owns how loading, empty, and error render and where request failures go. /webkit-form owns field structure and validation timing. This skill owns the words on all of them.

1. Mechanics: the hard bans

Ban	Why	Instead
Em dash and en dash (—, –)	Splices two thoughts into one unreadable line, and reads as unfinished editing	A period, a comma, or a colon. Two sentences are two sentences
Ampersand (&)	Not a word; noise in a label	and
Parentheses in labels	Flattens hierarchy: the aside competes with the name of the field	Move the aside to the field description, or to a Message above the group
Bold inside running text	Emphasis mid sentence fights the typography scale and reads as shouting	One idea per sentence. If it deserves prominence it deserves its own heading or tag
Feedback or consequence in a label	The reader has to parse a warning while looking for the field name	Message before the inputs it governs
Exclamation marks and decorative emoji	Infrastructure product, technical register	State the fact
please, sorry, oops, whoops	Padding, and it apologizes instead of resolving	Say what happened and what to do next
simply, just, easy, quick	Tells the reader their difficulty is their fault	Delete the word; the sentence is already shorter
ALL CAPS for emphasis	Only the overline token and acronyms are uppercase	Sentence case
A colon ending a field label	The input already shows where the value goes	Version, never Version:
... (three periods)	Not an ellipsis	The single character …, and only for genuine in-progress state (Deploying…)
Copy that names a layout position	The position changes at other widths, and in a drawer or bottom sheet it is simply false	Name the thing, not where it sits (in Deployment settings, not on the right)