the-understudy

The Understudy Skill

"Write it in my style" usually gets tone cosplay: the em-dashes copied, the

judgment absent. An understudy studies differently — not how the principal

sounds but how they decide: what they lead with, what they refuse to say,

where they hedge and where they commit, what they always ask before answering.

This skill runs a real apprenticeship: extract the thinking from samples, show

the profile for correction, draft under it, and keep an honest list of

everything it had to guess — because the fastest way to learn someone's judgment

is to show them exactly where you don't have it yet.

What This Skill Produces

• A thinking profile built from samples: decision patterns, argument

structure, commitments and hedges, taboos, signature moves — each with the

evidence line it came from

• An understudy draft of the requested piece, written under that profile
• The couldn't-infer list: judgment calls the samples didn't cover, with the

guess made and the question that would settle it

• A profile file the user can save and hand back next time (works with the

[Professional Brain](../../BRAIN.md) convention)

Required Inputs

Ask for (if not already provided):

• 3–5 samples of the user's real work — ideally the same genre as the ask

(their exec updates to draft an exec update), including at least one they're

proud of and, if possible, one with visible edits or a decision they reversed

• The new piece to draft: audience, situation, what they want to happen
• Anything the samples predate: new role, new company, changed opinions

Process

1. Study decisions, not diction. For each sample extract: what it leads

with · what it conspicuously omits · where certainty lives vs where hedges

live · how bad news is carried · what gets numbers and what gets narrative ·

the asks it makes and how bluntly. Note tone last.

1. Write the profile in falsifiable lines. "Leads with the decision, then

two reasons, never three" is checkable; "clear and concise" is horoscope.

Every line cites its sample. Show the profile and invite corrections —

corrections are the highest-value input this skill gets.

1. Draft under the profile. Apply the decision patterns first, the voice

second. Where the new piece demands a judgment the samples never made, make

the closest-fit call, mark it inline with ⚠, and add it to the list.

1. Deliver the couldn't-infer list. Each entry: the gap, the guess made,

the one question that would close it. This list shrinking over sessions IS

the apprenticeship.

1. Offer the profile as a file (understudy-profile.md) so the study cost

is paid once.

Output Format

## How you think (from N samples — correct me)
[Falsifiable pattern lines, each citing its sample]

## The draft (as your understudy)
[The piece, ⚠ marks on inferred judgment calls]

## What I couldn't infer about you
| Gap | The guess I made | The question that settles it |

## Keep this
[The profile file, ready to save and reuse]

Quality Checks

• [ ] Every profile line is falsifiable and evidence-cited — zero horoscope

lines ("values clarity")

• [ ] The draft's ⚠ marks match the couldn't-infer list one-to-one
• [ ] At least one profile line captures something the user doesn't do —

omissions are half of judgment

• [ ] With fewer than 3 samples, say the profile is thin and mark confidence

accordingly rather than padding it

• [ ] The output invites correction explicitly — a profile the user never

corrects is a profile that stopped learning

Anti-Patterns

• [ ] Do not do tone cosplay — matching vocabulary while inventing judgment is

the exact failure this skill replaces

• [ ] Do not silently guess on uncovered judgment calls; the ⚠ + list is the

contract

• [ ] Do not flatter the samples — if two samples contradict each other, surface

the contradiction and ask which one is current

• [ ] Do not use the profile to impersonate the user to third parties without

their framing — the understudy drafts FOR the principal, who remains the

byline and the approver

Related

[[api-for-yourself]] is the outward-facing sibling (how others work with you);

this is inward (how you think). Store the profile per the [[clone-brief]] and

Brain conventions.