LLM-Friendly Context

The goal is stable downstream execution: the next consumer should know what to read, what to do, what counts as success, and which unresolved decisions can change the result.

Core Rules

1. Use positive, executable instructions
   • State what the next consumer should do.
   • Convert quality policies into positive criteria.
   • Keep a prohibition only when it protects an irreversible boundary or shipped contract. Name the protected condition and the allowed action.
   • Example: "Preserve existing public API behavior across the documented compatibility cases."
2. Make vague instructions concrete
   • Clarify wording when plausible interpretations would change the outcome, scope, authority or proof. Supply purpose, evidence and selection criteria for reversible choices; reserve exact selections for actual consumer contracts and user-owned decisions.
   • Terms that often need clarification when they leave a decision to the next consumer: appropriate, proper, related, existing behavior, optional, as needed, if needed, per convention, unresolved alternatives, TBD, placeholder.
3. Specify output shape
   • Use the sections, fields, table columns, JSON keys, or checklist items the consumer uses.
   • For handoffs, include only produced artifact paths and status fields that control the next transition.
4. Provide the smallest sufficient context
   • Sufficient means sufficient for the assigned action, not complete background: every item you include is consumed by that action or by the result it must produce.
   • Include the purpose, source artifacts, hard constraints, accepted decisions, and unresolved conditions that action consumes.
   • Prefer concrete file paths and section hints over broad module names.
   • Follow references while they can change an in-scope decision, action, or verification result.
5. Decompose complex work into verifiable steps
   • Expose real dependencies and their completion evidence. Let independent reversible work follow the route suited to the task.
   • Each step needs a checkpoint: what evidence proves it is complete.
6. Permit uncertainty explicitly
   • Resolve missing operational detail from referenced artifacts and repository evidence before treating it as unresolved.
   • Record remaining uncertainty with its effect, required input, and decision owner. Make reversible repository-local choices when governing evidence resolves them.
7. Keep constraints proportionate
   • Add only constraints that reduce ambiguity or preserve a real requirement.
   • Keep simple downstream tasks lightweight when the target action, context, and success criteria are already clear.
   • Interpret minimal as the least downstream complexity that fully solves the problem. An explicit user diff limit is a constraint; otherwise necessary corrections are not bounded by a line count.

Rewrite Patterns

Use these rewrites before treating a prompt, handoff, or artifact as complete.

Handoff Checklist

Before sending a prompt or artifact to another consumer, verify:

• The target action is explicit.
• Required input paths, source artifacts, and decision-relevant facts are named.
• Every included context item is consumed by the target action or its required result.
• Accepted decisions and constraints use one canonical wording.
• Output format or expected status fields are specified.
• Success criteria are observable.
• Outcome-relevant ambiguities are resolved or assigned to their decision owner; harmless execution flexibility remains.
• Each instruction states the allowed action; each retained prohibition names the protected condition and allowed alternative.
• The next consumer can complete its scope from the supplied purpose, sources, criteria, and evidence, or return the exact unresolved decision and owner.

Generated Artifact Checklist

Before writing or finalizing a generated document:

• Each requirement, claim, task, test skeleton, or review finding has enough source context to trace why it exists.
• Every executable instruction names the target, action, and expected result.
• Verification steps say what to run or observe and what result proves success.
• Each instruction states the allowed action; each retained prohibition names the protected condition and allowed alternative.
• If an artifact is derived from another artifact, copied decisions stay consistent in wording and meaning.
• If downstream work is blocked by missing information, the artifact records the missing input, decision owner, and effect.