bluesky-style

Bluesky voice & style

When writing or editing a post for Bluesky:

• The audience skews technical, journalist/academic, and early-adopter, and is allergic to marketing speak. People are here on purpose. Be candid and specific; say the real thing.
• Be human, not corporate. Conversational and transparent beats polished and promotional.
• Favor participation over broadcasting: a post that invites a genuine reply earns its keep.
• ~300 characters (graphemes). Tight, but it can breathe more than an X post; wit and personality land here. Write the full thought first, then cut to length.
• Links don't hurt reach. Bluesky doesn't downrank them, so link directly to the source rather than hiding it or burying it in a reply.
• Use threads (replies) for longer thoughts; each post should still read on its own.
• Add alt text to every image. It's expected, not optional, and doesn't count against the character limit. Keep it a plain description of what's in the image.
• Hashtags are supported but used sparingly: one or two topical tags at most, never a wall. Keyword-rich text does more for discovery (custom feeds) than tag volume.

Structure

1. Hook: the candid claim or the concrete detail, front-loaded on line one.
2. Body: the substance, one idea, in your own voice.
3. Close: the link, the takeaway, or a real question.

References

• references/best-practices.md: researched tactics as a checklist, with sources.
• references/post-specs.md: character limit, media/alt-text, and hashtag specs for quick lookup.
• references/banned-words.json: the words to avoid. The lint_against_style tool checks a draft against this list (surface bluesky), so run the tool rather than reading the file.

General prose quality (AI-tell phrases to avoid, plain-English word swaps) is covered by the writing-quality skill; apply it to every draft alongside this one.