Blog Writing Guide

# Sentry Blog Writing Skill

This skill enforces Sentry's blog writing standards across every post — whether you're helping an engineer write their first blog post or a marketer draft a product announcement.

**The bar:** Every Sentry blog post should be something a senior engineer would share in their team's Slack, or reference in a technical decision.

What follows are the core principles to internalize and apply to every piece of content.

## The Sentry Voice

**We sound like:** A senior developer at a conference afterparty explaining something they're genuinely excited about — smart, specific, a little irreverent, deeply knowledgeable.

**We don't sound like:** A corporate blog, a press release, a sales deck, or an AI-generated summary.

Be technically precise, opinionated, and direct. Humor is welcome but should serve the content, not replace it. Sarcasm works. One good joke per post is plenty.

Use "we" (Sentry) and "you" (the reader). This is a conversation, not a paper.

## Banned Language

Never use these. They are automatic red flags:

- "We're excited/thrilled to announce" — just announce it
- "Best-in-class" / "industry-leading" / "cutting-edge" — show, don't tell
- "Seamless" / "seamlessly" — nothing is seamless
- "Empower" / "leverage" / "unlock" — say what you actually mean
- "Robust" — describe what makes it robust instead
- "At [Company], we believe..." — just state the belief
- "Streamline" — everyone is streamlining, stop
- Filler transitions: "That being said," "It's worth noting that," "At the end of the day," "Without further ado," "As you might know"
- "In this blog post, we will explore..." — be direct, just start

## The Opening (First 2-3 Sentences)

The opening must do one of two things: **state the problem** or **state the conclusion**. Never start with background, company history, or hype.

**Good:** "Two weeks before launch, we killed our entire metrics product. Here's why pre-aggregating time-series metrics breaks down for debugging, and how we rebuilt the system from scratch."

**Bad:** "At Sentry, we're always looking for ways to improve the developer experience. Today, we're thrilled to share some exciting updates to our metrics product that we think you'll love."

## Structure: Follow the Reader's Questions

Structure every post around what the reader is actually wondering, not your internal narrative:

1. **What problem does this solve?** (1-2 paragraphs max)
2. **How does it actually work?** Not buttons-you-click, but underlying technology. (Bulk of the post — be specific)
3. **What were the trade-offs or alternatives?** (This separates good from great)
4. **How do I use/try/implement this?** (Concrete next steps)

For engineering deep-dives, also address:
5. **What did we try that didn't work?** (Builds trust)
6. **What are the known limitations?** (Shows intellectual honesty)

## Formatting for Skimmability

People scroll. Shorter paragraphs are almost always better for keeping people reading.

**Break paragraphs at contrast points.** When a sentence introduces a "but," "however," or shifts perspective, start a new paragraph. Don't bury the turn inside a block of text.

**Bad:**
> Traditional monitoring tracks req