# Harness — Brand Language

*The single source of truth for name, voice, and copy. Every surface — site,
OG cards, Discord, README, automated posts, work orders — pulls from here.
If a line isn't in the spirit of this doc, it doesn't ship.*

## The idea

**Harness = controlled power.** Trading is a powerful animal. AI makes it
stronger, not tamer. Harness is how you hold it — firm grip, real numbers,
your hands on the straps. We never sell the fantasy that the animal is safe;
we sell the grip.

This resolves the brand's two constitutions in one image: honest-data (the
grip is real — live feeds, receipts, on-chain truth) and seamlessness (a
good harness disappears on the animal; you feel control, not equipment).

## Name usage

- **Harness** — the product, capitalized, no article. "Trade on Harness."
  Never "the Harness", never "Harness.trade" mid-sentence.
- **harness.trade** — the address, always lowercase, doubles as a sign-off.
- Wordmark: `HARNESS·TERMINAL` (existing type treatment). Mark: the candle-H.
- The category (lowercase, with article): "a trading harness" /
  "the trading harness" — we own the phrase by using it generically.

## Taglines, by context

| Context | Line |
|---|---|
| Category claim (bios, footers, README) | **The trading harness.** |
| Action CTA (buttons, invites, posts) | **Trade on Harness.** |
| Agent era (Phase 2/3 launches) | **The harness for trading agents.** |
| Trust/honesty surfaces (receipts, data pages) | **Real numbers, held firmly.** |
| Autonomy features (copilot, agent mode) | **You hold the reins.** |
| Product promise (landing hero — unchanged) | SOL to SPACEX. One account. |

Rule: one tagline per surface. Stacking slogans is flailing.

## Voice

- Spare. Numbers first. Verbs over adjectives. If a sentence survives with a
  word removed, remove it.
- Descriptive, never advisory: we say what moved, never what to buy. Posts
  raise questions; they don't give answers. (This is also the compliance
  line — see the narrative-machine advisoryLint.)
- Confidence without hype. Banned: revolutionary, blazingly, game-changing,
  to the moon, alpha (as a noun), 🚀 as punctuation, "!!" anywhere.
- The metaphor bank (use sparingly, one per piece): harness, reins, grip,
  rails, steady, hold, in-harness. Never mix with unrelated metaphors
  (rockets, casinos, degens).
- Disclaimers are brand, not fine print: "Not financial advice" appears
  plainly, never buried. Honesty is the moat; act like it.

## Boilerplates

**One-liner (app stores, directories, README hero):**
> Harness is an open-source trading terminal for Solana — perps and spot
> from one account, with AI you hold the reins on.

**Bio (X, Discord, GitHub):**
> The trading harness. Solana perps + spot, one account, real numbers.
> Not financial advice. harness.trade

**Long (press, about pages):**
> Harness is an open-source trading terminal for Solana. Phoenix perpetuals
> and Jupiter spot trade from one USDC account behind an email login — no
> seed phrase, no extension. Every number on screen comes from a live feed
> or the chain. As AI enters the terminal, it arrives in harness: suggestions
> you can ignore, actions you approve, autonomy you grant and revoke. The
> hands on the reins are always yours.

**Automated post sign-off:** `harness.trade` (bare — the address is the brand)

## Reinforcement rules (all comms)

1. Every outbound artifact carries exactly one brand element beyond the
   name: the mark, a tagline, or the address — not all three.
2. OG cards sign with `harness.trade`; automated posts end with it.
3. Feature announcements use the frame "X, in harness" when the feature is
   an AI capability ("Ghost suggestions, in harness: tab to accept, ignore
   to dismiss").
4. The Discord bot speaks in product voice: terse, numeric, no emoji except
   directional color conventions.
5. Community token, forks, unofficial anything: "their X, not ours" — warm,
   once, link the canonical statement.
6. When in doubt, cut the adjective and add the number.
