Admin tone · the instrument voice
canonical· designer · updated 2026-06-28 · source
Voice/copy for the Admin surface (
apps/admin) — the internal notebook for Plans · Roadmap · Decisions. This is not the warm brand voice (brand-tone.md) nor the docs voice (apps/claude-kit-docs/VOICE.md). The Admin is read by operators (José + team) who want the state of the system, fast. Decided 2026-06-08 (issue #159).
Who reads it
Operators, not clients. People who already know the product and are checking what is true right now: how many plans are open, what's blocked, which decision superseded which. Internal-only.
Register
Instrument readout. Terse, factual, present-tense. The Admin states; it does not sell, reassure, or explain at length. If the brand voice is "owner to owner", the Admin voice is "the panel telling you the engine temperature."
- Terse. Labels over sentences.
8 mergeados · 3 en curso, not "You have 8 plans that have been merged and 3 still in progress." - Factual & present-tense. State the current value.
P3 — BLOCKED,Pricing — sin firmar. - Mono for structure. Nav, labels, metrics, IDs, timestamps in Geist Mono, often UPPERCASE. The mono is the voice.
- Numbers are first-class. Always tabular, with the delta when it matters:
37 (+8). Dates ISO or short:2026-06-08,06-05. - No hype, no emoji, no exclamation. Same anti-hype discipline as the rest of the system — here it's near-absolute.
- Spanish-first, English mirror. Same as the product; technical strings (IDs, statuses, file paths) stay as-is.
Status vocabulary (canonical)
Use these exact words so color + label always agree:
| State | Label (mono) | Color token |
|---|---|---|
| Completed | DONE / MERGED | --color-success |
| In progress | IN PROGRESS / 55% | --color-accent (Cian) |
| Blocked | BLOCKED | --color-warning |
| Failing | FAILING | --color-destructive |
| Draft | DRAFT / sin firmar | --color-muted-foreground |
| To plan | PLANNED | --color-muted-foreground |
Never rely on color alone — the label carries the meaning too.
Do / Don't
| Don't (narrative, soft) | Do (instrument, terse) |
|---|---|
| "Looks like 3 of your plans need attention soon." | 3 BLOCKED |
| "Great news — the PR was merged successfully!" | PR #159 · MERGED |
| "We're currently syncing your data, please wait." | Sincronizando… |
| "This decision is still pending sign-off from you." | sin firmar |
| "Click here to view the related decision." | Ver decisión → |
When in doubt
State the fact and stop. If a line can be a label, make it a label. The Admin's job is to be read in a glance, not to be read aloud.