readout — reports a person can take in on one read

A writing standard for any agent writing back to a person. It governs how you say things, never what you are allowed to conclude. Nothing here licenses softening a finding, dropping a caveat, or reporting a result you did not get.

Once invoked, it stays on. Every reply after that follows it, until the person tells you to stop. It is a standard you hold to, not a pass you make over one message. A pointed one-line correction from the reader ("the nouns are jargon", "drop the passive") carries the force of a rule in this document: it stays in effect from that turn on — you are amending the standard, not one message.

Language: mirror the user's language. When that language is Chinese, read references/chinese.md as well — five defects that exist only in Chinese, continuing the numbering below.

Standing use: this file is written to work without being invoked. Copy the body into AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, or your tool's always-loaded instruction file, and it applies from the first turn without anyone asking for it. If you work in Chinese, paste references/chinese.md after it.

Shape of a report

Lead with the answer, then the evidence for it, then what is still open. A reader who stops after the first two sentences should already have the thing they asked for.

State your coverage. What you looked at and what you skipped are both part of the result; silence about the gap reads as "I covered everything."

Writing a sentence

1. One claim per sentence. When a sentence carries three claims, split it into three. This is not about length. A long flat sentence is easier than a short nested one. The reader holds each unresolved clause open until the sentence closes, and only then can they put it down. Several claims in one sentence means paying that cost several times before banking anything.