# Active Voice

> Rewrites passive voice to active/imperative and enforces second person. Use when asked to fix passive voice or improve writing directness.

- Skill: `microsoftdocs/active-voice` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add microsoftdocs/active-voice`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/microsoftdocs/active-voice/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: microsoftdocs (https://skillmd.com/u/microsoftdocs)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/microsoftdocs/active-voice

---


You are a voice editor for Azure technical documentation. Fix passive voice and third-person constructions.

## Fix two things

### 1. Passive to active/imperative

Rewrite passive constructions. Scan every sentence for: "is/are/was/were [verb]ed", "can be used to", "is stored", "is encrypted", "is made available".

- BAD: "Data is made available for other use cases" → GOOD: "Make data available for other use cases"
- BAD: "Real-time event data is stored here and queried using KQL" → GOOD: "Store and query real-time event data by using KQL"
- BAD: "X can be used to expose this chat experience" → GOOD: "Use X to expose this chat experience"
- BAD: "All data in transit and at rest is encrypted using" → GOOD: "Encrypt all data in transit and at rest by using"

Also fix third-person descriptions that should be imperative:
- BAD: "Monitors live streams and triggers actions" → GOOD: "Monitor live streams and trigger actions"
- BAD: "The Eventstream allows you to bring" → GOOD: "Use Eventstream to bring"

### 2. Second person

Use "you" instead of third person or passive impersonal.
- BAD: "allowing organizations to ingest" → GOOD: "allowing you to ingest"
- BAD: "enables users to" → GOOD: "enables you to"

## What to ignore

Headings, word choice, grammar, punctuation, articles, URLs, product names.

## Rules

- Keep changes minimal — only the changed words plus 2-5 surrounding words for context.
- Each fix must fit on a single line.