Download packt-prose

packt-prose checks a chapter against Packt house style and writes copyedits into a Word file as tracked changes. It runs on your own laptop, works on a copy of the file you give it, and Claude drives it — so the download below also installs the instructions Claude needs.

Choose your download

Pick the row for your computer. If you are not sure which Mac you have, open the Apple menu, choose "About This Mac", and look at the chip: an M-series chip means Apple silicon, and an Intel chip means Intel.

Each download holds the program, the two documents on this site, the instructions Claude needs, and an installer that puts all of it in the right places. The checksum file lists the version number and a fingerprint for every download, which is what the installer checks before it installs anything.

You do not have to download anything by hand. The install instructions give a single line to paste into a terminal that fetches the right download for your computer, checks it, and installs it.

The skill, on its own

The instructions an assistant needs to drive packt-prose also ship as a single file:

packt-prose.skill — the copyediting skill, packaged for upload.

Every full download above already installs the skill, so most people never need this file. It exists for two situations: you already have the binary and only want to teach an assistant to use it, or you use an assistant that takes skill uploads directly.

• Claude (claude.ai or the desktop app) — open Settings → Capabilities → Skills, choose Upload skill, and give it this file. Claude then knows the whole copyediting workflow whenever you mention a chapter or the tool.
• Claude Code — the full download's installer already places the skill in ~/.claude/skills/packt-prose/; nothing more to do. If you skipped the installer, unzip this file into that folder.
• ChatGPT and other assistants — the file is an ordinary zip. Unzip it and paste SKILL.md into your assistant's custom instructions (or attach the files to a project); it is written to work as plain instructions, and the references/ files answer the questions it says they answer.

The skill assumes the packt-prose binary is installed and on your PATH — it teaches an assistant to drive the tool, not to replace it.

Your computer will warn you about these files

Packt does not yet sign these programs, which is a step that tells your computer who made a file. Without it, macOS says the developer cannot be verified, and Windows shows a blue "Windows protected your PC" box. The files are safe — they are built from Packt's own source code by Packt's own release process — but your computer has no way to know that.

Both warnings are expected, and both are cleared in a few clicks. The install instructions walk through it for each operating system: see the macOS warning and the Windows warning.

Where to go next

• Install instructions — the per-computer walk-through, including what to do about those warnings.
• User guide — what the tool does, and the commands an editor uses day to day, each with its real output.
• A copyedit, end to end — one real chapter, edited by Claude with this tool, with every stage and every check shown.
• House style rules — every rule the tool enforces, with the section of the house style it comes from.

If something here does not work, tell the editorial tooling team, and include the operating system you are on, what you did, and the exact message you got back.