Editorial Skills

Draft includes 12 built-in editorial skills—hard-coded, opinionated text transformations that produce predictable, high-quality results. Skills are designed to do fewer things exceptionally well.

What Are Skills?

A skill is a named transformation backed by a fixed editorial rubric. Unlike open-ended AI chat, skills:

  • Produce predictable results — Same input, consistent output
  • Don't rely on world knowledge — No hallucination risk
  • Execute instantly — Optimized for speed
  • Respect hard rules — Numbers, quotes, and names are preserved

Natural language routing

You don't need to remember exact skill names. Just describe what you want naturally—"shorten this", "make it clearer", "extract tasks"—and Draft routes to the right skill.

The 12 Skills

Here's the complete list of Draft's editorial skills with examples:

Rephrase

Rewrite with different wording. Improves readability with shorter sentences, active voice, and explicit subjects.

Say or type:

"rephrase this, make this clearer"

Before

The implementation of the features that were requested by the client in the meeting that we had last week is going to be handled by the team.

After

Our team will implement the features the client requested in last week's meeting.

Fix grammar & typos

Correct spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization. Proofreads without changing your words.

Say or type:

"fix grammar, proofread"

Before

meeting went well. john said the q2 launch looks good and their going to finalize it tommorrow

After

Meeting went well. John said the Q2 launch looks good and they're going to finalize it tomorrow.

Shorten

Make it more concise. Removes filler and redundancy while preserving facts and meaning.

Say or type:

"shorten this, make it shorter"

Before

I wanted to reach out and let you know that after careful consideration and discussion with the team, we have decided that we will be moving forward with the implementation of the new system next Monday.

After

After team discussion, we're implementing the new system next Monday.

More formal

Professional and polished. Adjusts tone to be work-appropriate without being stiff.

Say or type:

"make professional, formal"

Before

Hey! So like, the thing you wanted? Yeah, I finally got around to finishing it lol. It's pretty good I think 😊

After

Hi, I've completed the work you requested. I'm confident in the quality of the deliverable and happy to discuss any questions you may have.

Elaborate

Add more detail and context. Makes text fuller and more flowing without inventing facts.

Say or type:

"elaborate, expand this"

Before

Meeting Thursday. Discuss budget.

After

We have a meeting scheduled for Thursday where we'll discuss the budget in detail.

Summarize

TL;DR - condense to key takeaways. Extracts main points and filters out the fluff.

Say or type:

"summarize, tldr"

Before

During our quarterly review meeting, we discussed the performance of various product lines. The mobile app showed a 23% increase in daily active users compared to last quarter, primarily driven by the new onboarding flow we launched in February. However, the desktop application experienced a slight decline of 5% in engagement, which the team attributes to increased competition in the market. We also reviewed the customer feedback from the recent survey, which highlighted strong satisfaction with our support team but identified areas for improvement in documentation. The finance team reported that we're tracking 8% ahead of our revenue targets.

After

• Mobile app DAU: +23% (new onboarding flow) • Desktop engagement: -5% (market competition) • Customer feedback: Strong support satisfaction, documentation needs improvement • Revenue: 8% ahead of target

Turn into bullets

Reformat as list (keeps everything). Converts prose into structured bullet points without losing information.

Say or type:

"turn into bullets, make a list"

Before

We need to update the documentation, fix the login bug, and also make sure to deploy the changes to staging before Friday. Don't forget to notify the QA team.

After

• Update the documentation • Fix the login bug • Deploy changes to staging before Friday • Notify the QA team

Write it out

Convert bullets into flowing paragraphs. Perfect for turning notes into emails or memos.

Say or type:

"write it out, turn into prose"

Before

• Meeting went well • Product roadmap discussed • New feature launching Q2 • Team agreed to hire two engineers

After

The meeting went well. The product roadmap was discussed, and the new feature is set to launch in Q2. The team agreed to hire two more engineers.

Pull out action items

Extract tasks from the text. Identifies who needs to do what with clear ownership.

Say or type:

"extract action items, what are the tasks"

Before

In the meeting, Sarah mentioned she'd look into the API issue. We also need someone to update the client by EOD. John said the design files should be ready by Thursday and he'll send them over.

After

• Sarah: Investigate API issue • [Unassigned]: Update client by end of day • John: Send design files by Thursday

Say no (politely)

Decline clearly and respectfully. Firm but kind, without over-apologizing or ambiguity.

Say or type:

"say no politely, decline"

Before

No I can't do that, I'm too busy and it's not really my job anyway.

After

Thank you for thinking of me for this. Unfortunately, I'm not able to take this on given my current commitments. I'd recommend reaching out to the appropriate team for assistance.

Make this a better prompt

Turn rough instructions into structured prompts. Adds role, task, constraints, and format.

Say or type:

"improve this prompt, better prompt"

Before

write me an email about the project delay

After

Role: Professional project manager Task: Write an email to stakeholders explaining a project delay Constraints: Keep under 200 words, maintain positive tone, include next steps Output: A complete, ready-to-send email

Using Skills

Natural Language

The easiest way to use skills is natural language. Draft's router understands variations:

Shorten

"shorten", "shorter", "cut this down", "make it brief"

Rephrase

"clearer", "rephrase", "simplify", "easier to read"

More formal

"professional", "formal", "work appropriate"

Turn into bullets

"bullets", "list", "bullet points", "turn into list"

Write it out

"prose", "write it out", "paragraph", "memo", "email"

Fix grammar

"grammar", "proofread", "fix typos", "spelling"

Skills Menu

Click "More" in the action bar to see all available skills organized by category:

Finish & Polish

Rephrase, Fix grammar & typos, Shorten, More formal, Elaborate

Structure & Extract

Summarize, Turn into bullets, Write it out, Pull out action items

Respond & Instruct

Say no (politely), Make this a better prompt

Output Modes

Skills output results in one of two modes:

In-Place Replacement

Most skills replace your selected text directly. This is fast and keeps you in flow. Skills that use in-place: Rephrase, Fix grammar, Shorten, More formal, Elaborate, Turn into bullets, Write it out.

Scratchpad

Riskier operations show results in a preview first, letting you review before inserting. Skills that use scratchpad: Summarize, Pull out action items, Say no, Make this a better prompt.

Undo always works

Regardless of output mode, you can always press ⌘Z to undo immediately after any skill execution.

Skill Guarantees

All skills respect these guarantees:

  • Preserve numbers — Financial figures, dates, quantities unchanged
  • Preserve names — People, companies, products unchanged
  • Preserve URLs — Links passed through exactly
  • Preserve quotes — Quoted text unchanged
  • No invented facts — Skills don't add information