Google Style

Google Style for Repo Prose

Source: https://developers.google.com/style. Every rule cites the page that mandates it. Where the guide is silent, this file says so — never invent a rule and attribute it to Google. Rules are ordered by how often agent-written prose violates them; rules 1-7 account for most of the damage.

1. Active voice — name the actor

https://developers.google.com/style/voice

Passive voice hides who does the thing, which turns a contract into a rumor.

• Wrong: "The identity is resolved and the request is forwarded to _impl."
• Right: "The MCP wrapper resolves the identity and forwards the request to _impl."

Passive is allowed in exactly three cases: to emphasize the object ("The file is saved"), to de-emphasize the actor ("Over 50 conflicts were found"), or when the actor is irrelevant ("The database was purged in January").

2. Present tense — drop "will"

https://developers.google.com/style/tense

Use present tense for behavior not tied to a point in time. Reserve "will" for something that genuinely happens later. Never use "would".

• Wrong: "The repository will raise NotFoundError when the tenant is missing."
• Right: "The repository raises NotFoundError when the tenant is missing."
• Right (genuinely later): "Add the step to the formula. The atom runs the next time the lane executes."
• Wrong: "You could call the wrapper, and it would then translate the error."

3. Second person — "you", not "we"

https://developers.google.com/style/person

Address the reader as "you". "We" is only for the authoring organization, which has no voice in task descriptions or notes. Imperative is second person with "you" implied — prefer it in steps.

• Wrong: "We then add the guard to the allowlist, and our test catches it."
• Right: "Add the guard to the allowlist. The test catches the violation on the next make quality run."

4. No hedging, no filler, no "easy"

https://developers.google.com/style/tone and https://developers.google.com/style/word-list

Delete: "just", "simply", "easy", "easily", "quickly", "please", "in order to" (use "to"), "allows you to" (use "lets you"). The guide is silent on "obviously" and "note that" — cut them under the tone page's ban on placeholder phrases, but don't cite a word-list entry that doesn't exist.

• Wrong: "Simply just call the repository — it's easy to plug in, and it allows you to skip the session."
• Right: "Call the repository. It manages the session for you."

5. Timeless writing — no "currently", "new", "now"

https://developers.google.com/style/timeless-documentation

Avoid: as of this writing, currently, does not yet, eventually, existing, future, latest, new/newer, now, old/older, presently, soon.

• Wrong: "The new REST transport doesn't currently support idempotency keys."
• Right: "The REST transport doesn't support idempotency keys."

The guide's exception is time-stamped content: release notes, commit messages, dated entries in a migration note. Not a note's body, not a task description.

6. Descriptive link text

https://developers.google.com/style/link-text

Never "here", "this document", "click here", "read more", or a bare URL as the visible text. Use the target's title, important words first.

• Wrong: "For the boundary rules, see this doc and click here."
• Right: "See Transport Boundary: Layer Separation and the Google developer documentation style guide."

7. Inclusive and non-ableist terms

https://developers.google.com/style/inclusive-documentation and https://developers.google.com/style/word-list

The complete list this repo's vocabulary actually touches:

The guide is silent on these — no Google rule exists, so do not claim one: terminate, invalid, illegal, via, segregate, tribe, chairman, one-click, dark pattern, obviously, note that. Use repo judgment.

8. Headings and titles

https://developers.google.com/style/headings

Sentence case, always. Task headings start with a bare infinitive; conceptual headings are noun phrases; no -ing first word. Optional: goes in front, not in trailing parentheses. Don't skip heading levels, number sections, or put links in headings.

• Wrong: "Migrating The Creative Approval Workflow (Optional)"
• Right (task): "Migrate the creative approval workflow"
• Right (concept): "Creative approval workflow"
• Right (optional): "Optional: Migrate the creative approval workflow"

9. Lists and tables

https://developers.google.com/style/lists

Numbered for sequences, bulleted for non-sequences, description lists for term/definition pairs. Never a one-item list. Introduce with a complete sentence, not a fragment the list finishes. Keep items parallel. Capitalize each item; end-punctuate only items containing a verb.

• Wrong intro: "The guard checks that:"
• Right intro: "The guard checks the following properties:"
• Wrong (non-parallel): "Resolves identity", "the request forwarding", "Error translation"
• Right: "Resolves the identity", "Forwards the request", "Translates the error"

Tables (https://developers.google.com/style/tables): use a table only for three or more related data points per row; two columns of term/definition are a description list, one column is a list. Sentence-case headers, no trailing punctuation. Introduce with a complete sentence — screen readers don't preannounce tables. No merged cells, no table inside a procedure.

10. Procedures

https://developers.google.com/style/procedures

One action per step, each opening with an imperative verb. State the location or condition before the action, and the purpose before the click.

• Wrong: "Click Approve to publish the creative, after you open the tenant admin UI."
• Right: "In the tenant admin UI, to publish the creative, click Approve."

11. Code in text

https://developers.google.com/style/code-in-text

Code font for identifiers, filenames, paths, env vars, flags, HTTP verbs and status codes, ports, and placeholders — not for product or service names. Never inflect a code identifier; add a noun and inflect that.

• Wrong: "MediaBuys are created by POSTing to the endpoint, and ADDRESS's value comes from settings."
• Right: "The endpoint creates MediaBuy records from a POST request. The ADDRESS constant's value comes from the settings.h file."

12. Global audience, accessibility, and jargon

https://developers.google.com/style/translation and https://developers.google.com/style/accessibility

Under 26 words per sentence. No idioms, humor, sports or holiday references, or seasons. Keep "that" after a verb ("assumes that you have"), keep "then" in an if-clause, repeat the noun rather than sharing it across a conjunction, and prefer the positive form.

• Wrong: "A missing tenant won't prevent the ball from getting rolling on the request."
• Right: "You can process the request without a tenant."

Jargon (https://developers.google.com/style/jargon): write around figurative jargon or define it once in parentheses — "blast radius" becomes "affected area", "ingest" becomes "import" or "load", "off-the-shelf" becomes "pre-built".

13. Punctuation and abbreviations

https://developers.google.com/style/commas and https://developers.google.com/style/abbreviations

Serial comma, always: "zones, regions, and multi-regions". Comma before "which" in a nonrestrictive clause and before a conjunction joining two independent clauses. Spell out an abbreviation on first use, expansion first with the abbreviation in parentheses. No periods in acronyms. Don't verb an abbreviation ("Use SSH to connect", not "SSH into the box").

Which rules bind which artifact

Reviewer checklist

Run this against any piece of writing before you commit it.

1. Does every sentence name its actor, or is it one of the three allowed passives?
2. Is every "will" describing something that genuinely happens later? Is there any "would"?
3. Any "we", "our", or "us" that is not the authoring organization?
4. Any of: just, simply, easy, easily, quickly, please, in order to, allows you to?
5. Any of: currently, now, new, latest, soon, existing, eventually?
6. Does every link say what it points to without the surrounding sentence?
7. Any term from the table in rule 7?
8. Headings: sentence case, bare infinitive or noun phrase, no -ing first word?
9. Lists: complete-sentence intro, parallel items, more than one item?
10. Serial commas present? Abbreviations expanded on first use?
11. Any sentence over 26 words, any idiom, any figurative jargon?

When repo convention wins

Google's guide loses to this repo in these cases, and only these:

• Conventional Commits prefixes. feat:, fix:, docs:, refactor:, perf:, chore: are lowercase by mandate of release-please and .github/workflows/pr-title-check.yml. Sentence case starts after the colon.
• AdCP spec terms and code identifiers keep their exact casing and spelling. A format named native, a method named execute, a Flask abort() call, a branch named main — these are names, not prose. Rule 7 applies to the sentence around them, never to the identifier.
• Quoted spec text is never edited for style. When you cite AdCP prose or a storyboard step, quote it verbatim, including its "will" and its passives.
• Repo abbreviations stay unexpanded in internal artifacts. AdCP, MCP, A2A, BDD, UoW, GAM, DRY, TDD are load-bearing vocabulary in .claude/notes/ and beads tasks. Expand them in docs/ and anything a contributor reads first.
• Formula atom names are lowercase kebab-case keys (write-test, verify-prediction), not headings.
• A design note may describe future work in future tense. Rule 2's own exception covers it: the migration genuinely hasn't happened yet.