Say what the scope rule is, and stop promising enforcement - #11
Merged
Conversation
Reddit user CaptainFilipe asked how the style "guarantees" it will not touch code while still touching prose inside code. The question was correct, and this section produced it. "What it never touches" described enforcement. An output style is system prompt text. Nothing outside the model holds the boundary, so the heading promised something the mechanism cannot deliver. It now says the rules are instructions and tells the reader to check output that matters. The section also dropped a target. The canonical Scope section names four: prose the agent writes, verbatim code, verbatim quotes, and "code comments and commit messages inside a repository: match the style of the repository." The README listed three, so a reader asking about docstrings and log strings found the answer missing rather than stated. All four are here now. Six files. The two paragraphs are translated in the five others.
This file contains hidden or bidirectional Unicode text that may be interpreted or compiled differently than what appears below. To review, open the file in an editor that reveals hidden Unicode characters.
Learn more about bidirectional Unicode characters
Sign up for free
to join this conversation on GitHub.
Already have an account?
Sign in to comment
Add this suggestion to a batch that can be applied as a single commit.This suggestion is invalid because no changes were made to the code.Suggestions cannot be applied while the pull request is closed.Suggestions cannot be applied while viewing a subset of changes.Only one suggestion per line can be applied in a batch.Add this suggestion to a batch that can be applied as a single commit.Applying suggestions on deleted lines is not supported.You must change the existing code in this line in order to create a valid suggestion.Outdated suggestions cannot be applied.This suggestion has been applied or marked resolved.Suggestions cannot be applied from pending reviews.Suggestions cannot be applied on multi-line comments.Suggestions cannot be applied while the pull request is queued to merge.Suggestion cannot be applied right now. Please check back later.
Reddit user CaptainFilipe called this out. Asking about my setup, they asked how the style would "guarantee" it never touches code while still touching prose inside code — docstrings, log messages, HTML content, LaTeX body text. The question was correct, and the README produced it.
Two problems in one section
It promised enforcement. "What it never touches", "character for character", "and nothing else" describe a lock. An output style is system prompt text. Nothing outside the model holds that boundary. The honest claim is a strong default, and the section now says so, with a line telling readers to check output when it matters.
It dropped a target, and dropped the one they asked about. The canonical Scope section in
output-styles/attention-control.mdnames four:The README listed the first three. So a reader asking what happens to a docstring found no answer, when the style file has one: defer to the surrounding code. All four are in the README now.
Scope of the change
Six files.
README.mdplus the five translations, which carried the same omission and the same promise. The two paragraphs are translated in each.tests/test_readmes.pynever covered this: no fences, no code spans, no numbered rules in that section. That is why the omission survived from the first commit.Not in this PR
They also identified a real gap: prose the agent writes into a document file — LaTeX body text, HTML copy, a log string it authors — is a fifth target the style does not name. That belongs in
output-styles/attention-control.md, which changes the style hash and every generated copy, so it gets its own PR and its own eval consideration.Gates