HanZephyr Prose Standard
Preserve the facts readers need to act correctly, then remove repetition and unnecessary explanation. Shorter text is useful only when it remains accurate and understandable.
Scope and authority
Infer scope from the user's request, named files, selection, and current change. Ask only when ambiguity materially changes the work; a missing formal scope parameter is not a reason to stop. A review produces findings; an authorized rewrite applies edits within that scope.
Follow the repository's language, formatting, and documentation conventions. Routine prose cleanup normally excludes vendored code, generated output, recorded fixtures, and frozen historical records. Inspect such material when needed for evidence; edit it only when the task and its ownership rules warrant that. For generated text, change the source and regenerate using the established process.
Preserve meaning
Before rewriting a passage, identify its relevant actor, action, conditions, timing, ordering, obligations, exceptions, ownership, side effects, failure behavior, and consequences. Preserve these independently: deleting narration must not erase a factual clause embedded in it.
Keep the behavior and caveats readers need at the point of use. Link to longer rationale or algorithms where they are maintained. Essential facts can repeat locally; avoid maintaining several competing explanations of the same rule.
Comments add non-obvious rationale, lifecycle constraints, or caller-visible behavior that code and types do not already make clear. Do not require every symbol to repeat a standard list of facts. Add or restore missing information when its absence would cause misuse; do not manufacture comments to reach a coverage target.
Use precise technical terms when they fit. Words such as “boundary,” “old,” “now,” and “should” are not errors by themselves. Distinguish actual requirements, estimates, historical evidence, and hypothetical designs rather than mechanically removing qualifiers.
Apply the relevant depth
Handle ordinary edits directly. Load supporting material only for the corresponding work:
- Meaning-preserving examples: ambiguous trims, lost obligations, unsupported claims, or overcorrection.
- Document structure: placement, substantial restructuring, tutorial progression, duplication, or documentation budgets.
- Authoring-session residue: unresolved draft references, review narration, or comments written from an obsolete session's viewpoint.
- Search probes: a scoped corpus audit for that residue, after understanding its semantic criteria.
Verify the result
Check the final diff against the original facts and the requested scope. Resolve links added or changed; inspect inbound links before moving a document or changing a referenced heading. Follow established translation or generation workflows only where they apply; do not invent pairing manifests, budgets, or decision records for a prose edit.
Run relevant existing checks proportionate to the change, such as link checking or git diff --check. Prompts, diagnostics, and interface strings can affect behavior or consumers; preserve required wording and use focused behavioral checks when the change could alter those expectations. Do not claim a search or formatting check proves semantic equivalence.
Report the result, validation performed, and material uncertainties. Updating this skill, its examples, or unrelated project policies requires a task that includes that work; ordinary user feedback is not permission to rewrite them.