reorder

Put a listing back into an order that carries meaning, moving items only.

Goal

A listing's order is information: kin sit together, and the sequence follows one axis a reader can feel. Order drifts — items get appended where they were written, not where they belong — until the sequence tells the reader nothing. reorder realigns the set under a single, nameable principle so the order reads as intentional again. It is fast and single-purpose: it moves items, and changes nothing else.

Workflow

1. Pin the listing and its items — the ordered set in focus.
2. Name the principle that makes the order carry the most meaning: workflow or lifecycle sequence, dependency, grouping by kind, severity, frequency, or plain alphabetical. If the set already has a latent order, surface and finish it rather than imposing a new one.
3. Cluster kin adjacent, then sequence the clusters by that one principle.
4. Move items into the new order in place. Reword nothing; add and remove nothing.
5. If the same set is mirrored elsewhere — a translated copy, a second surface — apply the identical order to each.

Rules