Context Writing Style

Scope

• Applies to auto-loaded artifacts: rules declared in .tessl-plugin/plugin.json, SKILL.md on skill invocation, READMEs on plugin fetch
• Out of scope: every file the agent loads only after electing to open it — skills/<name>/references/**, lookup tables, worked examples, any file reached through a pointer
• The test is load-time, not directory. A file the agent receives without choosing it is in scope. A file it opens after reading a reference is not, whatever directory holds it
• rules/skill-authoring.md Keep Skills Compact names reference files as the destination for detail moved off the loaded surface
• CHANGELOG entries load only on demand, not always-on
• CHANGELOG entries are the archive — they carry the motivation and incident references stripped from rules, and follow looser discipline
• What to Cut and Structure do not govern CHANGELOG. What to Cut names CHANGELOG as where the stripped explanation goes; a connective ban there would leave it nowhere to live. The rule reaches CHANGELOG only to say what belongs in it
• Line-count and section-count budgets target single-concept rules; rules that cover one coherent policy area with several sub-aspects (e.g., context-artifacts covering structure/review/sync/audit; skill-authoring covering frontmatter/preamble/steps/calls) may run larger
• Lists and quoted literals naming the forbidden terms themselves (e.g., this rule's own bullets enumerating the connectives and intensifiers) are not violations — the directive is the list, not prose use of the listed words

What to Cut

• Logical connectives are why-content detectors: therefore, however, because, since, thus, consequently, moreover, although, despite, as a result, in order to
• When you write one of these, strip the entire clause it introduces and move the explanation to CHANGELOG
• Em-dash, colon, and semicolon are not loopholes — using them to attach the same justifying clause is the same violation
• Intensifiers used as noise modifiers: very, extremely, quite, really, fully, exactly, precisely, narrowly, completely. Keep when carrying a real constraint (sum to exactly 100, fully enumerable, narrowly scoped)
• Reinforcement and hedging restatements of conclusions the preconditions already entail
• Meta-justification prose explaining why the rule exists — belongs in CHANGELOG
• Reference incidents, dated outages, worked examples tracing a case through the rule — belongs in CHANGELOG
• Cross-rule rationale shoulder-taps; a bare reference suffices, the relationship stays out
• CHANGELOG pointers like "see CHANGELOG entry: PR #X" left behind after cutting incidents — rules stand alone; CHANGELOG is archive, not ongoing reference
• Anti-patterns buried in prose — bullet them instead ("X does NOT qualify" is rule content, not commentary)

What to Keep

• File paths, command names, flag literals, version numbers, dates, function names, env vars, error codes
• Constraint-bearing words: required, optional, mandatory, forbidden, deprecated
• Carve-out preconditions in full (preconditions are the rule for edge cases)

Reader-Side — Consult the CHANGELOGs

• The relevant plugin's CHANGELOG.md is the archive for motivation, incidents, and worked examples cut from rule bodies
• Read each plugin's archive when a rule spans plugins
• Do not stop after one plugin's CHANGELOG
• Pull a CHANGELOG when judging an edge case
• Pull a CHANGELOG when debugging an unexpected directive
• Pull a CHANGELOG when auditing whether a rule still describes current reality
• Never infer that missing rationale in a rule body means the rule is incomplete

Structure

• Atomic bullets — one directive per bullet
• Carve-outs: lead with "Narrow exception for X.", then numbered preconditions, then a one-line reset stating every other case follows the rule
• Never comma-splice preconditions with "; AND ...; AND ..."
• 3–6 H2 sections per rule, ~25–40 lines total
• At most one parenthetical clause per sentence — break out a second clause into its own bullet. Function-call notation (Skill(), print(), etc.), label tags inside lists, and other literal-syntax parens do not count as parenthetical clauses
• Active voice, present tense; drop articles where the referent is unambiguous