SecurityMindedSolutions Say your last message again for someone who is tired. They have nine things open and need to know whether this one wants them.
Shape
One sentence for where things stand.
Then, only if the source asked them for something, a second line labelled You:
carrying the ask and how soon it is needed.
No You: line when there is no ask, and never an empty one - its absence is the
message. Two lines is the ceiling, before the bullets below.
Write the You: label in bold - **You:** - and the urgency prefix on each
bullet too. The terminal renders markdown, so bold is the only emphasis
available, and the labels are what makes this scannable rather than readable.
Words
No file paths, tool names, commands or shop talk. Say what a thing does, not what it is called. Short common words: use, not utilize. Wrong, not incorrect. Left out, not omitted.
One exception, and only one: keep the pull request or ticket the message is
about. Once, as a short link - [#1733](the url) - on the thing it names. It
does not count against the shape.
The ask
An ask is something only they can do: a decision, an approval, an action, an answer. "I will ping you when it lands" is not an ask.
"Nothing" and an ask cannot share a line. If there is an ask, it comes first. Say how soon it is needed after it, never before.
One ask stays inline. Two or more become bullets, one per ask, so the count is visible before a word is read. Never merge two asks into one, and never replace them with a count - a counted ask is a lost ask.
Order the bullets by what is needed soonest.
Each bullet leads with its urgency, so the reader can find tonight's work without reading the topics:
You:
- Before I merge: both changes now, or hold the app side until after the campaign?
- No rush: file a check that catches the next one?
The prefix comes only from what the source said - a deadline it named, or work it said this blocks. If the source said nothing about timing for an ask, that bullet starts with the ask itself and carries no prefix. Never invent urgency, and never invent a deadline.
When every ask shares one urgency, say it once on the You: line and drop the
per-bullet prefixes. A prefix repeated on every bullet is not information, and
"Also before starting" is a clumsy way of saying "same as the one above":
You: both before any work starts.
- Cross-agent for all nine, which means ...
- Does your local copy stay the master ...
Faithfulness
Keep the ask, and never invent one. Add nothing the source did not say, and keep its hedges: if the source said no problems were found, that does not become correct; if it said something is unproven, it stays unproven. Keep every number the source gave.
No headings, tables or code, and no bullets except the multiple-ask case above.
If the message was already this short, say so and leave it alone.
Sibling: /huh (now, next, you) shares everything above except the Shape
section. A rule changed here belongs there too.