--- title: "Blog writing guide: review, setup & limitations · Undominated.ai" canonical: https://undominated.ai/skills/getsentry-blog-writing-guide/ description: "Applies one publisher's voice rules, including a banned-language list, and does not pretend that voice is universal." --- # Blog writing guide: review, setup & limitations · Undominated.ai > Applies one publisher's voice rules, including a banned-language list, and does not pretend that voice is universal. [← Explore all skills](/skills/) DOCUMENTATION AND KNOWLEDGE / Sentry # Blog writing guide Applies one publisher's voice rules, including a banned-language list, and does not pretend that voice is universal. [See setup guidance ↓](#setup)[Original source ↗](https://github.com/getsentry/skills/tree/d18b7aa8ba878354e5c348310230e652f7690f9c/skills/blog-writing-guide) SOURCE REVIEW Reviewed 2026-10-15 Evidence 3 linked sources Publisher Sentry Licence [Apache-2.0 ↗](https://github.com/getsentry/skills/blob/d18b7aa8ba878354e5c348310230e652f7690f9c/LICENSE) Revision d18b7aa8ba87 [Read what was—and wasn’t—checked ↓](#review) “Write, review, and improve blog posts for the Sentry engineering blog following Sentry's specific writing standards, voice, and quality bar. …” [Sentry · upstream description ↗](https://github.com/getsentry/skills/blob/d18b7aa8ba878354e5c348310230e652f7690f9c/skills/blog-writing-guide/SKILL.md) Our analysis follows below. 01 / THE REASONING ## Why this made the selection. - The voice rules are publisher-specific, including a banned-phrase list and a named-author requirement. - Code in a post has to be tested, and limitations have to be stated. ### A good fit for - Drafting or editing a Sentry engineering blog post - Cutting an opening that starts with background or hype - Write an engineering article whose trade-offs and examples can be checked against source evidence. - Review a draft with separate technical and editorial checklists before confirming its byline and documentation links. ### Weigh up before choosing - The opening must state the problem or the conclusion, not company history. - Bylines cannot be The Sentry Team, and the skill forbids we're excited to announce. - The voice rules are Sentry's; the file does not present them as a universal blogging standard. - This review did not execute the skill. - SEO suggestions are editorial hypotheses, not ranking guarantees. Sentry-specific voice and formatting should not override another publisher or the user style. 02 / THE REVIEW RECORD ## What we actually inspected. Source review has boundaries. A clear record is more useful than a “safe” badge. ### Material inspected - skills/blog-writing-guide/SKILL.md - LICENSE - README.md - vercel-labs/skills@48dc9e8eb8aa19040e91cb90ba0b642c9cbad57e:README.md ### Our findings - The pinned skill bans a phrase list, requires the first sentences to state a problem or a conclusion, and says headings must carry information. - Technical standards say included code must work, comments should explain why, and beta or competitor limits must be acknowledged. - Closings cannot be generic hype or a product-page call to action; they should point at docs, source, or a concrete next step. - Non-negotiables include a real person's name, working code, and a known audience before writing. - The guide organizes posts around reader questions, includes failed approaches and known limitations, and discourages hype in favor of concrete technical detail. - The final review separates technical accuracy, editorial structure, and publication checks for byline, documentation links, and changelog duplication. ### Not established by this review - The skill was not executed inside a host agent. - Not executed: it was not installed or run. The review applies to the material and revision named here. A newer upstream release can change its behavior. 03 / PUT IT TO WORK ## Add a skill to your workflow. [Upstream setup instructions ↗](https://github.com/vercel-labs/skills/blob/48dc9e8eb8aa19040e91cb90ba0b642c9cbad57e/README.md) DOCUMENTED COMMAND npx skills add getsentry/skills --skill blog-writing-guide Copy command ↗ Run in your terminal to choose your AI tools, project or global scope, and installation method. This short command follows the current upstream version; the review covers the revision shown above. - Install the named skill. - Do not apply its banned list to a different publisher without saying so. - For manual installation instead, download the complete bundle from https://undominated.ai/resources/skills/getsentry-blog-writing-guide/bundle.zip and extract it into a new directory. It holds SKILL.md unchanged at revision d18b7aa8, the upstream licence and an attribution file. - Place the extracted directory in your host's documented skills directory, named blog-writing-guide. Keep SKILL.md and the licence together. ### Before you start - A draft and the audience it is for ### Compatibility Agent Skills-compatible hosts ### Local Markdown instructions - Read and edit the draft - Run the code samples the post includes - Reads engineering material and edits drafts; customer details and unpublished product facts require an appropriate publication scope. ### Cost model Apache-2.0 licence; publishing the post is outside the file. THE COMPLETE REVIEWED DEFINITION ## Read it before you reuse it. Original source bytes, with attribution. Review the host-specific setup notes above. Copy definition ↗ [Download definition + licence ↗](/resources/skills/getsentry-blog-writing-guide/bundle.zip)[Raw Markdown ↗](/resources/skills/getsentry-blog-writing-guide/definition.md) --- name: blog-writing-guide description: Write, review, and improve blog posts for the Sentry engineering blog following Sentry's specific writing standards, voice, and quality bar. Use this skill whenever someone asks to write a blog post, draft a technical article, review blog content, improve a draft, write a product announcement, create an engineering deep-dive, or produce any written content destined for the Sentry blog or developer audience. Also trigger when the user mentions "blog post," "blog draft," "write-up," "announcement post," "engineering post," "deep dive," "postmortem," or asks for help with technical writing for Sentry. Even if the user just says "help me write about [feature/topic]" — if it sounds like it could become a Sentry blog post, use this skill. --- # Sentry Blog Writing Skill This skill enforces Sentry's blog writing standards across every post — whether you're helping an engineer write their first blog post or a marketer draft a product announcement. **The bar:** Every Sentry blog post should be something a senior engineer would share in their team's Slack, or reference in a technical decision. What follows are the core principles to internalize and apply to every piece of content. ## The Sentry Voice **We sound like:** A senior developer at a conference afterparty explaining something they're genuinely excited about — smart, specific, a little irreverent, deeply knowledgeable. **We don't sound like:** A corporate blog, a press release, a sales deck, or an AI-generated summary. Be technically precise, opinionated, and direct. Humor is welcome but should serve the content, not replace it. Sarcasm works. One good joke per post is plenty. Use "we" (Sentry) and "you" (the reader). This is a conversation, not a paper. ## Banned Language Never use these. They are automatic red flags: - "We're excited/thrilled to announce" — just announce it - "Best-in-class" / "industry-leading" / "cutting-edge" — show, don't tell - "Seamless" / "seamlessly" — nothing is seamless - "Empower" / "leverage" / "unlock" — say what you actually mean - "Robust" — describe what makes it robust instead - "At [Company], we believe..." — just state the belief - "Streamline" — everyone is streamlining, stop - Filler transitions: "That being said," "It's worth noting that," "At the end of the day," "Without further ado," "As you might know" - "In this blog post, we will explore..." — be direct, just start ## The Opening (First 2-3 Sentences) The opening must do one of two things: **state the problem** or **state the conclusion**. Never start with background, company history, or hype. **Good:** "Two weeks before launch, we killed our entire metrics product. Here's why pre-aggregating time-series metrics breaks down for debugging, and how we rebuilt the system from scratch." **Bad:** "At Sentry, we're always looking for ways to improve the developer experience. Today, we're thrilled to share some exciting updates to our metrics product that we think you'll love." ## Structure: Follow the Reader's Questions Structure every post around what the reader is actually wondering, not your internal narrative: 1. **What problem does this solve?** (1-2 paragraphs max) 2. **How does it actually work?** Not buttons-you-click, but underlying technology. (Bulk of the post — be specific) 3. **What were the trade-offs or alternatives?** (This separates good from great) 4. **How do I use/try/implement this?** (Concrete next steps) For engineering deep-dives, also address: 5. **What did we try that didn't work?** (Builds trust) 6. **What are the known limitations?** (Shows intellectual honesty) ## Formatting for Skimmability People scroll. Shorter paragraphs are almost always better for keeping people reading. **Break paragraphs at contrast points.** When a sentence introduces a "but," "however," or shifts perspective, start a new paragraph. Don't bury the turn inside a block of text. **Bad:** > Traditional monitoring tracks requests and latency. That works for stateless HTTP services. AI agents are different. A single run might involve multiple LLM calls, tool executions, and handoffs. **Good:** > Traditional monitoring tracks requests and latency. That works for stateless HTTP services. > > AI agents are different. A single run might involve multiple LLM calls, tool executions, and handoffs. The line break before the contrasting point creates visual emphasis. This is standard in online writing even though it breaks traditional paragraph rules. **One idea per paragraph.** If a paragraph covers two distinct points, split it. Three-sentence paragraphs are fine. One-sentence paragraphs are fine for emphasis. **No em dashes.** Use commas, periods, or line breaks instead. Em dashes are fine in print but create visual clutter in blog formatting. ## SEO for Developer Content When targeting a competitive search query: **Lead generic, close specific.** The first 50-60% of the post should be tool-agnostic educational content (definitions, concepts, metrics, best practices). Introduce your product as an implementation example in the second half. Google ranks guides higher than product pages for informational queries. **Put keywords in H2s.** Generic headings are invisible to search. "Key metrics for AI agent monitoring" beats "What to measure." (See **Section Headings** below for good/bad examples.) **Include a definitional section.** For any head term ("agent observability", "error monitoring"), top-ranking pages almost always have a "What is X?" section. Include one even if it feels basic. **Add an FAQ.** 3-4 questions targeting long-tail keywords at the bottom of the post. These can win featured snippets and People Also Ask boxes. ## AI Writing Patterns to Avoid LLM-generated prose has tells. Flag and rewrite these: **Staccato dramatic fragments.** - Bad: "No errors. No warnings. Everything green." - Good: "There were no errors, no warnings, everything looked fine." **Bumper-sticker aphorisms.** - Bad: "You can't fix what you can't see." - Good: "Without visibility into the full request lifecycle, you're guessing." **Three-beat reveals.** - Bad: "Not a config issue. Not a code bug. The deploy was stale." - Good: "It wasn't a config issue or a code bug. The deploy was stale." **Smug simplicity.** - Bad: [code block] "That's it. That's all you need." - Good: [code block] then explain what the code does, or just move on. **Parallel structure ad copy.** - Bad: "Metrics tell you what's broken. Traces tell you why." - Good: "Metrics show what's broken, but traces are where you'll actually figure out why." **Personality only in the bookends.** AI drafts open with a personal anecdote, go impersonal for 80% of the post, then close with a CTA. The author's voice should persist throughout. - Bad: Personal intro → clinical middle → "Try Sentry for free." - Good: First-person asides woven through the post: "this is the part that tripped me up" / "I would have blamed the wrong service." ## Section Headings Must Convey Information **Weak:** "Background," "Architecture," "Results," "Conclusion" **Strong:** "Why time-series pre-aggregation destroys debugging context," "The scatter-gather approach to distributed GROUP BY," "Where this breaks down: the cardinality wall" ## Technical Quality Standards **Numbers over adjectives.** If you make a performance claim, include the number. - Bad: "This significantly reduced our error processing time." - Good: "This reduced our p99 error processing time from 340ms to 45ms — a 7.5× improvement." **Code must work.** If a post includes code, test it. Include imports, configuration, and context. Comments should explain *why*, not *what*. **Diagrams for systems.** If you describe a system with more than two interacting components, include a diagram. Label with real service names, not generic boxes. **Honesty over hype.** Never overstate what a feature does. Acknowledge limitations. If something is in beta, say so. If a competitor does something well, it's okay to note that. Do not claim AI features are more capable than they are — "Seer suggests a likely root cause" ≠ "Seer finds the root cause." ## Title Guidelines The title is the highest-leverage sentence in the post. It must stop a developer scrolling through their RSS feed or Twitter. **Strong titles** make a specific claim, tell a story, or promise a specific payoff: - "The metrics product we built worked. But we killed it and started over anyway" - "How we reduced release delays by 5% by fixing Salt" - "Your JavaScript bundle has 47% dead code. Here's how to find it." **Weak titles** are vague announcements: - "Introducing our new metrics product" - "Performance improvements in Sentry" - "AI-powered debugging with Seer" ## The Closing End with something useful: a link to docs, source code, a way to try it, or a call to give feedback. Never end with generic hype ("We can't wait to see what you build!"), recaps of what you just said, or product-page CTAs ("Try Sentry for free. Included on all plans."). Connect back to the story you opened with, or give the reader something concrete to do next. ## Post Types Here's the quick map by post type: | Type | Goal | Byline | |------|------|--------| | Engineering Deep Dive | Explain a technical system/decision so other engineers learn | The engineer(s) who built it. Always. | | Product Launch | Explain what shipped, why it matters, how to use it | PM, engineer, or DevEx. Not PMM unless marketing built it. | | Postmortem | Transparent failure analysis with timeline and fixes | Engineering leadership | | Data / Research | Original insights from Sentry's unique data position | Data team, engineering, or research | | Tutorial / Guide | Help a developer accomplish something specific | DevEx, engineer, or community contributor | ## The "Would I Share This?" Test Before publishing, ask: Would a developer share this post? Does it have a shot at getting on Hacker News? If the answer is no, the post either needs more depth, more original insight, or it belongs in the changelog instead. Posts worth sharing contain at least one of: - A technical decision explained with trade-offs - Original data or research not found elsewhere - A real-world debugging story with specific details - An honest accounting of something that went wrong - A how-to that saves the reader real time ## Non-Negotiables (Quick Reference) 1. Never publish without a real person's name on it. No "The Sentry Team" bylines. 2. Never publish code that doesn't work. 3. Never say "we're excited to announce." Just announce it. 4. If you describe a system, include a diagram. 5. If you make a performance claim, include the number. 6. If you discuss a decision, explain what you didn't choose and why. 7. Every post must have a clear "who is this for" in the author's mind before writing. 8. Changelogs belong in the changelog. Blog posts should offer something more. 9. When in doubt, go deeper. The risk of being too shallow is far greater than being too detailed. 10. Write the post you wish existed when you were trying to solve this problem. ## When Reviewing or Editing a Draft Run through both checklists: **Technical Review:** - All technical claims accurate - Code samples work - Architecture descriptions match reality - Numbers and benchmarks correct - No oversimplifications that would make an expert cringe **Editorial Review:** - Opening hooks reader within 2 sentences - Passes the "would I share this?" test - No corporate language, filler, or fluff - Headings convey information - Right length (not padded, not too thin) - Title is specific and compelling **Final Check:** - Author byline is correct (real person's name) - Links to docs/getting-started included - Post doesn't duplicate what's in the changelog When providing feedback, be specific and constructive. Quote the weak passage, explain why it's weak, and rewrite it to show the standard. The download contains SKILL.md . Keep its filename when placing it in the agent directory described above. By **Sentry**. [Exact upstream source ↗](https://github.com/getsentry/skills/blob/d18b7aa8ba878354e5c348310230e652f7690f9c/skills/blog-writing-guide/SKILL.md) · [Licence](/resources/skills/getsentry-blog-writing-guide/LICENSE.txt) · [Attribution](/resources/skills/getsentry-blog-writing-guide/ATTRIBUTION.txt) SHA-256 8aba654d1af0820ee83370ddcbe51c24fb1c624c169931bd87f36247d181caa4 Read the applicable licence Apache License Version 2.0, January 2004 http://www.apache.org/licenses/ TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR USE, REPRODUCTION, AND DISTRIBUTION 1. Definitions. "License" shall mean the terms and conditions for use, reproduction, and distribution as defined by Sections 1 through 9 of this document. "Licensor" shall mean the copyright owner or entity authorized by the copyright owner that is granting the License. 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You may obtain a copy of the License at http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License. 04 / FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE ## The source trail. Our notes are separate from the original resource. Check upstream before adopting a new version. - [Skill definition ↗](https://github.com/getsentry/skills/blob/d18b7aa8ba878354e5c348310230e652f7690f9c/skills/blog-writing-guide/SKILL.md) Checked 2026-10-14 https://github.com/getsentry/skills/blob/d18b7aa8ba878354e5c348310230e652f7690f9c/skills/blog-writing-guide/SKILL.md Supports: Workflow and stated scope - [Repository licence ↗](https://github.com/getsentry/skills/blob/d18b7aa8ba878354e5c348310230e652f7690f9c/LICENSE) Checked 2026-10-14 https://github.com/getsentry/skills/blob/d18b7aa8ba878354e5c348310230e652f7690f9c/LICENSE Supports: Redistribution terms - [Pinned definition review, 2026-10-15 ↗](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/getsentry/skills/d18b7aa8ba878354e5c348310230e652f7690f9c/skills/blog-writing-guide/SKILL.md) Checked 2026-10-15 https://raw.githubusercontent.com/getsentry/skills/d18b7aa8ba878354e5c348310230e652f7690f9c/skills/blog-writing-guide/SKILL.md Supports: review.findings, bestFor KEEP COMPARING ## Other approaches to consider. Related by category or shared topics. These are alternatives to inspect, not a measured quality order. [### Documentation and ADRs ↗ Records an architecture decision with a status, instead of leaving the reason in chat.](/skills/addyosmani-documentation-and-adrs/)[### Internal Communications ↗ Formats source-backed team updates, internal newsletters and employee FAQs for a defined audience.](/skills/anthropics-internal-comms/)[### Maintaining AGENTS.md ↗ Keeps agent instruction files short and points at existing docs instead of duplicating them.](/skills/getsentry-agents-md/) [AI Tools ↗](/tools/)[Skills ↗](/skills/)[Agents ↗](/agents/)[MCP Servers ↗](/mcp-servers/)[Workflows ↗](/workflows/) ## Continue your investigation - [Choose a toolkit](/tools/) - [Inspect execution hosts](/agents/) - [Check tool access](/mcp-servers/) - [Check project dependencies](/check-repo/)