Volume IV

Content & voice

An interface is mostly words. Aros writes like an engineer who respects your time: precise, calm, candid. This volume is as binding as the visual rules — a perfectly designed dialog with sloppy copy is a defect.

4.1 · Content

Voice & tone

Voice is constant; tone flexes with severity. The voice is always precise, calm, and candid — never chirpy, never alarmist, never vague.

Precise

Say the exact thing. "3 of 4 MinIO nodes" beats "some nodes." Numbers, names, units.

Calm

Even at P1, state facts without panic. The product is the steady one in the room.

Candid

Name what broke and what it means. No euphemism, no blame, no hand-waving.

4.1.1 We say / we don't say

We say

pve3 is unreachable. The cluster is read-only until quorum returns.

Discovery found 37 resources.

This permanently destroys VM 109.

We don't say

Oops! Something went wrong 😬

We found a bunch of stuff for you!

Are you sure you want to do this?

NEVERUse exclamation marks, emoji, or cute error copy ("Oops!", "Uh-oh!"). Aros is an instrument, not a mascot.

SHOULDWrite in the active voice and address the operator as "you." Aros refers to itself as "Aros," not "we" — it's a system, not a team.

4.2 · Content

Mechanics

The unglamorous rules that make copy look engineered rather than improvised.

Rule	Standard	Example
Capitalisation	Sentence case everywhere — labels, buttons, headings	"Run discovery", not "Run Discovery"
Numbers	Numerals always, even 0–9; tabular figures in data	3 hosts · 0 alerts
Units	Space before unit; binary where apt	187 GB · 28 TB · 5 min
Dates	ISO-ish, unambiguous; 24h time	2026-05-29 · 18:57
Durations	Compact, largest unit first	42d 6h · 2800ms
Hostnames / IDs	Monospace, never translated or pluralised	pve1 · VM 231
Ranges	En dash, no spaces	120–240ms

MUSTUse sentence case for every piece of UI text. Title Case is reserved for the wordmark and proper nouns only.

4.3 · Content

Terminology

One word per concept, used everywhere. Drift in vocabulary is drift in the product.

Use this	Not this	Means
Estate	fleet, environment, infra	The whole managed set of hosts & resources
Host	server, machine, box, node	A physical PVE machine (pve1–3)
Resource	item, object, thing	Any discovered entity (VM, container, …)
Operational	OK, fine, green, up	Healthy and live
Degraded	warning, iffy, partial	Running but at risk / reduced
Offline	dead, broken, error	Not reachable / not running
Discovery	scan, sync, refresh	The process that finds resources
Approval	sign-off, confirm, ack	A human authorising a proposed action
Sealed	logged, saved, recorded	Written to the tamper-evident audit log

MUSTTreat this glossary as canonical across UI, docs, CLI, and notifications. If a new concept needs a word, add it here first.

4.4 · Content

Microcopy library

Ready-made strings for the situations that recur. Copy these; don't reinvent them.

4.4.1 Buttons

Action	Label
Start discovery	Run discovery
Confirm a proposed fix	Approve
Destructive, irreversible	Destroy VM 109
Dismiss without acting	Cancel
Retry a failed op	Retry

SHOULDLabel buttons with the verb of the outcome, and name the object in destructive actions ("Destroy VM 109", not "Delete"). The button should make sense read aloud without the dialog.

4.4.2 Errors

Situation	Message
Host unreachable	Couldn't reach pve3 — connection timed out after 30s.
Validation	Not a valid hostname.
Permission	You don't have permission to apply changes in this tenant.
Quorum	Cluster is read-only — quorum lost (pve3 down).

MUSTAn error states what happened and, where possible, what to do. Never expose a raw stack trace or an opaque code as the entire message.

4.4.3 Empty & confirmations

Situation	Copy
Empty inventory	No resources yet — discovery hasn't found anything on this host.
No alerts (good)	All clear. Nothing needs your attention.
Destructive confirm	This permanently destroys VM 109. monitoring.ryanit.com will be repointed first.
Success toast	Saved to Vault

4.4.4 Notifications

Severity	Pattern
P1 critical	P1 · Quorum lost — pve3 unreachable. Cluster read-only.
P3 warning	P3 · MinIO read-only risk — dual-VM host detected.
Recovery	Recovered · pve3 back online. Quorum restored.

SHOULDLead a notification with its severity and the subject, then the consequence. Always send a matching recovery notice — an alert with no all-clear leaves the operator guessing.

4.5 · Content

Status & severity language

Severity has a fixed register. The words, colour, and urgency are paired so they can never drift apart.

Severity	Colour	Register	Pages?
P1 · Critical	--danger	Direct, consequence-first. "Cluster read-only."	Yes, immediately
P2 · Major	--danger	Firm. "A failure domain is compromised."	Yes
P3 · Warning	--warn	Measured. "At risk if a host is lost."	Digest
P4 · Info	--info	Neutral. "Discovery completed."	No

NEVERInflate severity for attention. Marking routine info as P1 is the fastest way to make operators mute Aros entirely — and a muted alarm is worse than none.

End of Volume IV

Next: Applications

The system is fully specified. Volume V — Applications → takes it into the world — and lists everything you must never do to it.