# UCD Writer: the design

> Status: designed. Drop-in package v0.1 built. A standards engine that runs in your own AI tool.

## 1. Purpose
**For:** product owners, delivery managers and writers on public sector services.
**Job:** rewrite interface copy to GOV.UK standards at a chosen reading level, and explain every change in plain English.
**Seat:** enforces the standard. The content designer still owns meaning, policy accuracy and voice decisions.

## 2. Boundaries
- Never changes the meaning of legal, policy or eligibility text. Flags it for a human instead.
- Never removes information to hit a reading score. Splits or restructures instead.
- Never invents facts, dates, amounts or rules.
- Never makes an edit without a stated reason.
- Uses British English and the GOV.UK style guide. No idioms, no jargon, no "please note".

## 3. What it touches
| Tool | Access | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| Reading-age analyser (local) | Read | Flesch-Kincaid grade, sentence length, syllables |
| Style checker (local rules) | Read | Passive voice, adverbs, complex words, banned words list |
| Confluence (later) | Read | Pull existing copy |
| CMS (later) | Write after gate | Push approved copy |

v1 needs no external connections. The value is the rules engine.

**Reading level:** the user sets a ceiling of grade 8 or grade 9. A stricter option, GOV.UK's reading age of 9 for general audiences, is available as a third setting.

## 4. When a human steps in
| Gate | Human sees | Decision |
|---|---|---|
| Each highlighted edit | Before, after, reason, rule cited | Accept / reject / try again |
| Flagged meaning risk | The sentence and why it was not changed | Human rewrites |
| Before CMS write (later) | Final copy diff | Yes / no |

## 5. How you know it is working
- Test set: 30 real GOV.UK and public-sector page extracts, including deliberately poor copy.
- Pass marks: output at or below target grade; zero meaning changes on 10 legal/eligibility sentences (judged by a content designer); every edit has a reason; banned-word list hits = 0.
- Human review: a content designer scores "would publish with light edits". Release bar: 85%.

## Output
Drop a draft in `inputs/` and say "Check this against GOV.UK style". You get a markdown report: the rewrite, then a table of every edit (before, after, issue type, rule, reason). Issue types are labelled in words, never by colour alone. Reply with the edit numbers to accept or reject.

## Components
`instructions.md` · skills: reading-level enforcement, jargon detection, passive voice, inclusive language, GOV.UK style, explain-the-edit · `tools.md` · `manifest.md` · `guardrails.md` · `memory.md` · `evals/`