dhh-writing

dhh-writing is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from robertguss/claude-code-toolkit. It costs 56 tokens per session (1,457 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A writing guide for the distinctive style of David Heinemeier Hansson, known for direct, opinionated, concise prose.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it for blog posts, technical articles, business writing, manifestos, and other content that needs strong opinions and memorable arguments.
Why use it?
It gives writing a clear position and energetic voice instead of cautious or corporate-sounding language.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Part of the compound-writing plugin — 5 skills, 4 commands, 7 agents shipped together

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/robertguss/claude-code-toolkit/dhh-writing
Any agent
npx skills add robertguss/claude-code-toolkit --skill dhh-writing
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/robertguss/claude-code-toolkit

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install compound-writing, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 5 skills, 4 commands, 7 agents.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for dhh-writing

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/robertguss/claude-code-toolkit/dhh-writing.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/robertguss/claude-code-toolkit/dhh-writing)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/robertguss/claude-code-toolkit/dhh-writing"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/robertguss/claude-code-toolkit/dhh-writing.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 56 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,457 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00056 $0.01457
Opus 5 $0.00028 $0.00728
Sonnet 5 $0.00011 $0.00291
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00146

Measured 4d ago against content hash a3a38ad5fba6, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

dhh-writing scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 4d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

plugins/compound-writing/skills/dhh-writing/SKILL.md · 208 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 208 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

DHH Writing Skill

Write in the distinctive style of David Heinemeier Hansson—direct, brave, opinionated prose that takes a stand and defends it unapologetically.

When to Use This Skill

This skill applies when:

  • Writing opinion pieces or manifestos
  • Creating blog posts that need to take a strong position
  • Crafting business or product philosophy content
  • Writing in a "Basecamp/37signals voice"
  • Creating content that challenges conventional wisdom
  • Any writing that needs to be punchy and memorable

Core Philosophy

"Strong opinions, weakly held" is half-right. You need strong opinions, strongly expressed. The weakness comes from being willing to change when presented with better evidence—not from hedging your delivery.

DHH's writing is characterized by:

  • Conviction: Every piece has a clear position
  • Courage: Willing to say unpopular things
  • Clarity: No corporate-speak, no hedging
  • Concision: Short sentences, short paragraphs

The 10 Core Techniques

Reference techniques.md for the complete guide.

1. Take a Stand

Every piece must have a thesis you can disagree with.

❌ "There are pros and cons to remote work that teams should consider."

✅ "Remote work is the future. Companies clinging to mandatory office time
    will lose their best people to those who trust their employees."

2. No Hedging

Remove qualifiers that weaken your position.

Words to eliminate:

  • "I think..." (just say it)
  • "In my opinion..." (obviously)
  • "It seems like..." (commit)
  • "Some might say..." (who?)
  • "Generally speaking..." (specifically speak)

3. Short Sentences

Punch. Impact. Clarity.

Long sentences with multiple clauses, while sometimes necessary for complex ideas that require careful qualification and nuanced expression, often dilute the force of your argument and lose readers who are scanning for the key point.

Short sentences work better.

They're memorable.

They're quotable.

They're true.

Read the full file on GitHub · 208 lines

Files

What ships with it

4 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 4d ago First seen · 208 lines · 56 tokens per session scan A a3a38ad5fba6

Subscribe to this mod's changes

dhh-writing is a skill published in the GitHub repository robertguss/claude-code-toolkit (108 stars, last pushed 26d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 56 tokens to every session and 1,457 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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