prose-standard
Prose Standard
Write enough to preserve the contract, then remove reasoning transcripts, repetition, and decoration. A contract is an obligation, invariant, precondition, postcondition, or compatibility promise that a caller, callee, implementer, producer, or consumer relies on. This skill owns editorial judgment and required prose coverage; it applies to any document or string an agent or human reads — comments, JSDoc, docs, prompts, diagnostics, and visible UI strings.
The defining constraint: a smaller word count is never the goal by itself. The goal is every factual clause preserved, nothing more. Trim or add as the proposition demands.
Preserve the complete proposition
Before editing a passage, enumerate every proposition it carries. Preserve each relevant:
- actor and action;
- condition, timing, and ordering;
- modality — must, may, never;
- negative guarantee and exception;
- ownership, side effect, failure mode, and consequence.
Remove adjectives, repetition, and narration only when every factual clause survives and the result is clearer. A smaller word count alone is not an improvement. Do not weaken a proposition to make progress.