Document Co-authoring: Write Together, Ship Faster

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Official Anthropic skill on GitHub

Summary

You've been staring at the same paragraph for 20 minutes. The draft is due tomorrow. Your colleague's feedback says "needs more impact" but doesn't say how.

Instead, work with Claude as your writing partner. Describe what you're trying to say, and Claude helps you say it better—preserving your voice while making every sentence count.

Stop writing alone. Start writing with a partner who never gets tired.

Draft from rough ideas

You have bullet points, meeting notes, or half-formed thoughts. Claude turns them into polished prose that sounds like you wrote it on your best day.

Refine what's already there

Paste your draft. Say "make it tighter" or "more persuasive" or "less jargon." Claude rewrites while keeping your core message intact.

Iterate without starting over

Don't like a section? Ask for three alternatives. Want a different tone? Claude adjusts. The back-and-forth is the point.

Pros

  • Move from blank page to solid draft in minutes instead of hours
  • Get unstuck when you know what you want to say but can't find the words
  • Maintain your voice while improving clarity and impact
  • Iterate faster—ask for alternatives instead of rewriting from scratch
  • No more "can you take a look at this?" emails to busy colleagues
  • Works with any document type: emails, reports, proposals, posts

Cons

  • Claude suggests—you decide. Always review for accuracy, especially facts and figures you provided
  • Highly technical or legal content should still get expert review
  • Works best when you give clear direction about what's not working and why

How to Use Document Co-authoring Skill

Skill command:
1

Install the Skill

Download the skill file directly, or install via the plugin marketplace. Skills auto-activate when relevant—no manual invocation needed.

Option 1: Direct Download
curl -o .claude/skills/doc-coauthoring.md https://raw.githubusercontent.com/anthropics/skills/main/skills/doc-coauthoring/SKILL.md
Option 2: Plugin Marketplace
/plugin marketplace add anthropics/skills
/plugin install document-skills@anthropic-agent-skills
2

Share Your Starting Point

Paste your draft, outline, or even just the idea you're trying to express. Claude works with whatever you have—polished or messy.

Example Prompt
Here's my draft executive summary for the Q4 board deck. It's too long and buries the lead. Help me tighten it to 150 words max while keeping the key wins front and center.
3

Be Specific About What You Need

Vague requests get vague results. Tell Claude exactly what's not working: too wordy, wrong tone, missing the point, needs stronger opening.

Example Prompt
The third paragraph sounds defensive. Rewrite it to acknowledge the delay but pivot quickly to what we're doing about it. Confident, not apologetic.
4

Iterate Until It's Right

Ask for alternatives. Mix and match. Say "I like the opening from version 2 but the closing from version 1." Claude keeps track.

Example Prompt
Give me three different openings for this email—one direct, one warm, one that leads with the ask. I'll pick one to build from.
5

Polish and Ship

Once the content is solid, ask Claude to check for typos, consistency, or formatting. Then copy it out and send it.

Example Prompt
Final pass: check for typos, make sure we're consistent with company name capitalization, and format this for a Google Doc.

Example Prompts

Real-world scenarios showing how to use Document Co-authoring effectively

Scenario: Exploring different approaches before committing

Your Prompt

I need to write a project status update that explains a 3-week delay. Before we write the full thing, show me 4 different approaches: apologetic, matter-of-fact, solutions-focused, and forward-looking. One paragraph each so I can pick a direction.

Expected Outcome

Claude generates four distinct paragraphs with different tones. You pick the one that fits your situation and audience, then expand from there.

Scenario: Turning notes into a polished document

Your Prompt

Here are my raw notes from the customer interview. Turn this into a 2-page summary for the product team. Keep direct quotes where they're powerful. Organize by: key pain points, feature requests, competitive mentions.

Expected Outcome

Claude structures your messy notes into a clear document with sections, preserving the customer's voice in key quotes.

Scenario: Making a draft more persuasive

Your Prompt

This is my pitch for expanding the engineering team. HR said it needs to be "more compelling." Rewrite it to lead with business impact, quantify the cost of not hiring, and end with a clear ask. Keep it under 500 words.

Expected Outcome

Claude restructures the argument to lead with stakes, adds concrete framing, and sharpens the call to action.

Scenario: Matching someone else's writing style

Your Prompt

I'm ghostwriting a LinkedIn post for our CEO. Here are three posts she's written that I like. Write a new post announcing our Series B in her voice—direct, slightly self-deprecating, always ties back to the team.

Expected Outcome

Claude analyzes the style patterns and produces a post that sounds authentically like the CEO, not like generic corporate content.

Scenario: Breaking through writer's block

Your Prompt

I've been stuck on this blog intro for an hour. The topic is "why we're rebuilding our API." I keep starting with "We're excited to announce..." which is boring. Give me 5 opening hooks that aren't that.

Expected Outcome

Claude offers five distinct opening approaches—maybe a customer pain point, a surprising stat, a question, a bold claim, or a story. You pick one and run with it.

Frequently Asked Questions

That depends on what you give it. Share examples of your writing, specify the tone you want, and iterate. Claude adapts to your style—but you need to guide it there. The more context you provide, the more it sounds like you.
Perfect. Claude is great at expanding rough ideas into structured prose. Paste your notes, describe the document you need (memo, email, report), and specify the audience. Claude fills in the gaps while preserving your key points.
Claude Code is built for iterative work sessions. It maintains context across a long conversation, works with local files, and follows detailed instructions about style and format. It's a writing partner, not a one-shot generator.
Yes. For documents over a few pages, work section by section. This gives you more control and lets you iterate on each part. Claude remembers previous sections so the whole document stays consistent.
Your documents are processed through Claude's API but not stored for training. For highly sensitive content, check your organization's AI policies. You control what you share.
No special prompt engineering needed. Talk to Claude like you'd talk to a colleague: "This sounds stiff—make it warmer" or "Too long—cut it in half." Be specific about what's not working and Claude figures out the rest.

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