Conciseness

The body is dense with non-obvious specifics (syllabus notation T/F/`-`/N/A, the merge-legality rule, the infeasibility trap) and avoids explaining basics Claude knows, but a few tokens could be trimmed: repeated inline "(§4.2.3)" parentheticals after the Overview already declares the source, and provenance details ("2024-09-15 revision", "fetched 2026-06-10") duplicated outside the References section. Not 5 because of these minor trims and the time-sensitive date/version info not confined to a single section; not 3 because there is no padding or generic explanation.

Actionability

Every step is executable as written: a fully worked spec ("Premium members always ship free... express is a flat $14.99"), mechanical fill rules, exact notation, a merge test ("every expansion of the dash is feasible and produces identical actions"), and a complete output table with concrete values ("cart total $80.00", "$49.99/$50.00 around the threshold"). Not 4: the guidance covers the common cases end-to-end with no gaps a model would have to fill by guessing.

Workflow Clarity

Five clearly sequenced steps with an explicit validation gate in Step 4 ("R3 and R7 are infeasible; delete them") that resolves the `?` flags from Step 2, a feedback loop ("If that check fails, the table must be rebuilt with R3/R7 feasible"), and a held-merge checkpoint in Step 3 that prevents the naive R1+R3 error. Not 4: checkpoints and error-recovery paths are explicit at each decision point, not implicit.

Progressive Disclosure

The core derivation lives in the body while extended-entry table forms and the anti-patterns table are split into references/decision-table-details.md (verified to exist and to contain exactly what is promised), referenced one level deep under a heading that names its contents. Not 4: the split is clean, the reference is well-signaled, and nothing that belongs in the reference file is inlined.

Specificity

Lists five concrete, sequential actions — "identify conditions and actions, build the full 2^n-column matrix, collapse columns with irrelevant entries, strike infeasible combinations, then emit one test case per remaining column" — plus the concrete output form ("manual step/expected cases"). Not 4: coverage spans the entire derivation pipeline with no gaps, matching the comprehensive anchor rather than 'minor gaps in coverage'.

Completeness

Explicitly answers what ("Derives human-readable manual test cases from a business-rule spec via a decision table") and when ("Use when a spec's outcome depends on interacting conditions (pricing, eligibility, discounts, routing rules) rather than the boundaries of a single input") with concrete trigger phrases. Not 4: the when-clause is fully explicit and domain-specific, not merely present.

Trigger Term Quality

Covers the technique name ("decision table"), the domain trigger terms users would naturally say ("business-rule spec", "interacting conditions", "pricing, eligibility, discounts, routing rules"), and output vocabulary ("manual test cases", "coverage item"). Not 4: both the primary term and its natural synonyms/trigger domains are present, so no meaningful natural phrasing is missing for this domain.

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

Explicitly fences off adjacent skills: "A deep single-technique walkthrough rather than a broad multi-lens case matrix", "manual step/expected cases rather than parameterized test code", "how cases are derived rather than how a case record is structured", and "rather than the boundaries of a single input". Not 4: the niche and its boundaries against every neighboring technique are stated, leaving minimal conflict risk.