What looks like a single profile document is actually three layers combined at generation time. Each layer controls a distinct scope. None of them replaces the others — they stack.
Layer 1 — Global Baseline is managed by Riterly. It applies to every user and every draft on the platform. It establishes universal writing quality standards: rules about structure, prose quality, things the system never does regardless of any individual profile. You cannot see it, and you cannot edit it. When Riterly updates the baseline, those improvements apply to your next draft automatically.
Layer 2 — Niche Template is selected during signup from a list of available niches. Each template is pre-built for a specific content type — it captures the conventions, vocabulary, audience expectations, and structural norms that apply across an entire category of writing. You do not edit the niche template directly.
One important thing to understand about how the niche template works: at signup, the template is copied into your profile record. It becomes a seed — a starting point for your personal layer. It is not a live dependency. If Riterly updates the niche template after you've signed up, that change does not affect your profile. Your profile contains its own copy, which you can then build on.
Layer 3 — Personal Profile is the layer you own. It is built initially by the signup wizard and refined over time as you develop and tune it. This is the only layer you read from and write to directly. Everything in the editing interface — both editing modes, every field, every save — operates on Layer 3.
At generation time, all three layers merge. The global baseline sets the floor. The niche template establishes category-level conventions. Your personal layer defines what makes your writing specifically yours.
What Layer 3 captures
The personal profile is structured around a defined set of fields. Each field corresponds to a dimension of how you write.
- Who the writer is — your professional context, background, and the perspective you write from
- Audience — who you're writing for, what they already know, what they need, and what register they expect
- Voice and tone — how you sound: formal or casual, direct or exploratory, authoritative or conversational
- Sentence style — how you construct sentences: length, rhythm, complexity, whether you favour short punchy statements or longer flowing ones
- Language patterns — specific phrases you use consistently, and specific phrases you never use; this is where the system learns the vocabulary that's distinctively yours
- Post structure conventions — how you open, how you develop an argument, how you close; whether you use subheadings, bullet points, or prose-only sections
- Topics covered — the subject areas you write in, which helps the system make appropriate assumptions when context is sparse
- Custom rules — anything that doesn't fit the above categories; explicit instructions the system should always or never do
The wizard's job at signup is to populate these fields well enough that the profile captures your voice from the start. Layers 1 and 2 have already handled "sounds like a good writer in this niche" — the wizard is only closing the gap between that and "sounds like me." That's a smaller gap than starting from zero, but it's the gap that matters most.
Users who invest time in tuning Layer 3 — adding specific examples, refining language patterns, adding custom rules as they encounter edge cases — reach a point where drafts require very few edits before publication.