# Voice & tone

ASK speaks like a **highly capable, completely dependable corporate co-pilot**. Technical authority with industrial responsibility. The three attributes below are the test every word should pass.

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## The three attributes

### 1. Authoritative & Pragmatic

**Posture.** Demystify the AI mechanism. Focus on verifiable accuracy and operational excellence. Do not perform mystique.

**UX implication.** Surfaces explain what they did and why; they don't ask the user to take their word for it.

**Example copy.**

> *Grounded in certified corporate knowledge. Zero speculation.*

**Avoid:**

> ~~*Powered by next-generation AI to deliver insights you'll love.*~~ — marketing flourish; says nothing.
> ~~*The AI thinks the answer is…*~~ — anthropomorphizing erodes accountability.

---

### 2. Protective yet Enabling

**Posture.** Frame constraints as empowering infrastructure, not as walls. Encourage exploration *within* the safe bounds.

**UX implication.** Guardrails are surfaced calmly, inline, with continuation paths — not as red blockers.

**Example copy.**

> *Your session is isolated within the private tenant. Data cannot leak to external models.*

**Avoid:**

> ~~*Access denied.*~~ — accusatory and uninformative.
> ~~*This feature is locked. Contact your administrator.*~~ — passes the buck; says nothing about why.

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### 3. Deterministic & Accountable

**Posture.** Reject conversational vagueness. Rely strictly on evidence and auditable logic chains.

**UX implication.** Outputs reference their source; actions describe their effect before they happen.

**Example copy.**

> *Review the cited source document before approving this workflow.*

**Avoid:**

> ~~*I think this is probably right, but let me know if you disagree!*~~ — fake humility; defers the user's responsibility back to them without information.
> ~~*This action will be processed shortly.*~~ — passive and imprecise.

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## Microcopy library

These are the canonical phrasings for recurring moments. Use them verbatim; if you need a variant, propose it via a [doc-change PR](../../CONTRIBUTING.md).

### Compliance & guardrails

| Moment | Copy |
|---|---|
| PII redaction (Pattern C — active) | *[Guardrail Active]: PII Data detected. Automatically anonymizing names and IP addresses before processing.* |
| Out-of-scope block (Pattern C — block) | *[Guardrail Block]: Out of scope. This App is restricted from processing data outside its functional domain.* |
| HITL confirmation banner (Pattern B) | *Verify target details below. Confirming this action will write data permanently to [Target System].* |
| Citation invitation (Pattern A) | *Review the cited source before relying on this output.* |
| Tenant isolation reassurance | *Your session is isolated within the private tenant. Data cannot leak to external models.* |

### Agent state

| Moment | Copy |
|---|---|
| Agent thinking | *Reasoning over your corporate knowledge…* |
| Agent retrieving | *Retrieving sources from [Knowledge Pod: <name>].* |
| Agent writing | *Drafting response. Sources will be cited inline.* |
| Agent finished | *Complete. {N} sources cited.* |
| Agent blocked by guardrail | *Stopped. {Guardrail name} prevented this action.* |

### Errors

| Moment | Copy |
|---|---|
| Source unavailable | *Source document temporarily unreachable. Output is omitted rather than reconstructed.* |
| Quota exhausted | *Tenant quota reached for this period. Contact your workspace owner.* |
| Network failure | *Connection lost. Your draft is preserved locally.* |

### Empty states

| Moment | Copy |
|---|---|
| No agent runs yet | *No runs yet. Each completed run is auditable from this view.* |
| No documents in Pod | *This Pod is empty. Upload documents to ground future answers.* |
| No notifications | *Caught up.* |

---

## Tone in product surfaces vs. marketing

The voice doesn't shift between product and marketing. The *length* does.

| Surface | Sentence length | Sentence count |
|---|---|---|
| Product UI | 4–14 words | 1–2 |
| Email / notification | 8–18 words | 2–3 |
| Marketing | 10–22 words | 3–6 |
| Sales deck | 6–18 words | 1–4 |

Never use **three exclamation marks**, **ellipses for dramatic pause**, or **conversational hedges** ("kind of", "sort of", "actually"). These erode the deterministic feel.

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## Capitalization & punctuation

- **Sentence case** in UI. *Approve workflow*, not *Approve Workflow*.
- **Title case** only for proper nouns: *General Chat*, *Notebook*, *Vertical App*, *Knowledge Pod*, *Verified Citation*.
- **Em dash** ( — ) over double-hyphen.
- **Curly quotes** ( " " ' ' ) in long-form prose. Straight quotes in code samples.
- **Oxford comma** mandatory.
- No emoji in product or marketing surfaces. Internal Slack is fine.
- ALL CAPS only for token names (`API`, `RBAC`, `RAG`) and the `caption` type style at 12 px with 0.14em tracking.

---

## When in doubt

Ask: *would a careful, capable corporate lawyer write this?* If yes, ship it. If no, edit.

For brand voice escalations contact **Matteo Rizzo** ([matteo.rizzo@mir-ai.it](mailto:matteo.rizzo@mir-ai.it)).