# Voice & copy

> Who speaks, how it sounds, and the copy rules both products follow.

**Who speaks.** The product speaks to the reader as *you*. A Digital Worker speaks as *I* ("Tell me about you", "I'll handle the rest"); the company speaks as *we* only on the public site and in legal or manifesto copy. Never let the interface say "we" about the product's own behaviour.

**Tone.** Plain, direct and a little warm. Say what happens and what to do next. Prefer short declaratives and, in headlines, triads: "Automate. Simplify. Thrive", "Liberty. Diversity. Reciprocity."

**Casing.**
- Product UI: sentence case everywhere — titles, buttons, menu items, labels ("Review drafts", "Daily sending limit").
- Marketing headings and CTAs use Title Case ("Empower Your Team with Digital Workers", "Contact Our Team"). Don't carry this into the apps.
- Proper nouns keep their capitals: Digital Crew, Crew OS, Max, Digital Worker, Unibox, Inbox Autopilot. Agents go by first names (Sophie, Claire, Max, Camille, Kate, André).
- Overlines and eyebrows are uppercase with 0.08em tracking (`crew-overline`, `max-overline`): "YOUR DIGITAL WORKERS".

**Buttons** start with a verb and name the outcome: "Build my Digital Worker", "Start free trial", "Review drafts". Destructive buttons name the object: "Delete campaign".

**Empty states and errors** state the fact, then the way forward, in one or two sentences:
- "No campaigns match. Create a campaign or try another name."
- "Add the Cal.com URL and API key."
- "Choose a calendar you own before saving."
- "Accounts from another workspace can't be changed here."

**Max's product copy rules** (from its design audit and reference docs):
- *Report the outcome, not the effort.* "Data found for 63 of 100 contacts", not "Contact enrichment complete for 100 contacts."
- *State the cost before the action*, and show estimates as ceilings: "Uses 1 AI credit · the 12 ideas below are free", "≤ 40 credits". Out of credits is said before the click, in an amber block with an **Add credits** link.
- *Name the gap before offering to fill it*, and spell out skip reasons: "needs a LinkedIn URL, or a first + last name plus a company".
- *Honest precision.* No invented clock times on far-off plans; projected times are labelled "projected".
- *No leaked internals.* No API routes, raw enum values (`in_progress`), "tool server (MCP) is unreachable" or "Runtime reported: …" in the interface.
- *One name per thing.* If people read "Tasks", the address says `/tasks`; pick "Organisation" or "Organization" and keep it.
- *Privacy in names.* Public booking pages say "With Mario and Jeanne", never a surname or an email.
- *Translation-safe strings.* Text that changes sits in its own element (`{saving ? <Loader2 /> : <Save />}<span>{saving ? "Saving…" : "Save"}</span>`); a multi-part string is one template literal; never `translate="no"`.

**Placeholders** show an example, not the label: "you@company.com", "+33 6 12 34 56 78", "Search people, companies, deals, tasks…".

**Typography in copy.** Use the real characters: … (ellipsis), — (em dash, spaced: "still running — one moment"), ’ (curly apostrophe), · (middle dot) as a separator in meta lines ("Free to start · No credit card · Ready in 2 min").

**Emoji.** None as decoration. A few glyphs carry meaning inline in Max and stay: ⚡ marks an automation rule on a pipeline column, 🔥 is the mailbox warm-up shortcut, ✓ and ⚠ mark health chips. Everything else is a Lucide icon.

**Language.** Crew OS ships in English, French, German, Spanish and Chinese; leave room for longer French and German strings.