refactor: two craft skills stop explaining themselves to the reader

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -195,6 +195,25 @@ and [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.html).
 
 ### Changed
 
+- `de-slop` and `compressed-deliberation` say less about themselves. A reading
+  of the craft tier with both skills open found each file spending about half
+  its words on its own provenance and its own limits. Neither loses a rule.
+  `de-slop` keeps one clause of the reason it ships no word list, and the
+  repository-governance case behind that decision moves to
+  `source/craft/de-slop.md`. Its `What stands behind this shape` section merges
+  into `Boundary`, which already stated the same no-standard proposition.
+  `compressed-deliberation` loses the seven bullets that described Claude Opus
+  5, and keeps the sentence a reader acts on, which is that the rules aim at
+  the whole stack rather than at the model alone. Those bullets move to
+  `source/craft/compressed-deliberation.md`, beside the URLs and read dates
+  that already held them, so the provenance survives the move. One clause is
+  cut rather than moved. It said that files written to disk are the case the
+  vendor documents most clearly, and it attributed that to a record which never
+  said it. Two headings over two bullets each become labelled bullets under
+  `The shape of a reply`.
+  The `compressed-deliberation` matrix therefore carries no `G` row, and it
+  drops its `Source version` line, because ADR-0026 refuses that line in a
+  matrix that cites nothing. Both matrices renumber in document order.
 - `proportionate-execution` says how it differs from `de-slop`. Three of the
   four craft skills already related themselves to a neighbour, and `de-slop`
   has named this one since 0.3.0, so the closest pair was cross-referenced

grounding/craft/de-slop.md

@@ -30,9 +30,9 @@ row, including the ones that read as obvious.
 
 A vendor page reporting that its own model writes at length would not change
 that. Such a page describes a model and prescribes nothing, which is the
-distinction `grounding/craft/compressed-deliberation.md` records for the seven
-`G` rows it does carry. A contributor who finds a real source for a rule here
-adds the source record before adding the row.
+distinction `grounding/craft/compressed-deliberation.md` records for the vendor
+material its own skill used to carry. A contributor who finds a real source for
+a rule here adds the source record before adding the row.
 
 `E-16` is the row where the `G` question was live, and it is the one row here
 that carries a fact we did not establish. Anthropic reported the Claude Code
@@ -43,13 +43,18 @@ the defect the `Audited` column exists to catch, one column over. So the row is
 `E`, the unit states the report as a report, and the source record states where
 it came from and what it would take to promote the row.
 
-## The body was rewritten, so the IDs start again
+## The IDs restart whenever the body is rewritten
 
 An earlier draft of this skill was a list of prohibitions, and the owner ruled
 that this failure type takes a positive recipe instead. Almost no unit survived
-that rewrite unchanged, so the numbering restarts in document order rather than
-preserving the gaps an earlier two-row edit had left. A reviewer holding IDs
-from the prohibition draft should read this table fresh.
+that rewrite unchanged, so the numbering restarted in document order rather
+than preserving the gaps an earlier two-row edit had left.
+
+A later editorial pass cut the word-list argument back to one paragraph, merged
+`What stands behind this shape` into `Boundary`, and merged two paragraphs of
+the comparison section into one. The numbering restarted again, on the same
+rule. A reviewer holding IDs from either earlier draft should read this table
+fresh.
 
 ## Where the line between an `E` row and an `N` row falls here
 
@@ -62,11 +67,12 @@ is each departure beside them, because a departure names a defect in the
 reader's passage even though it is written as description rather than as a
 prohibition. The form changed and the authority did not.
 
-And `No part of this matches a word` grades almost entirely `N`, because it
-argues for a decision about this repository rather than telling a writer
-anything. `E-19` is the exception, because "a word becomes a rule in a skill
-only after a promoted study says it should" is a rule this repository follows,
-and ADR-0021 is where it was decided.
+And `No part of this matches a word` grades `N` throughout, because what
+survives there describes this skill and argues for a decision about this
+repository rather than telling a writer anything. The rule that a word becomes
+a rule in a skill only after a promoted study says it should is a rule this
+repository follows, and it now lives in `source/craft/de-slop.md`, beside
+ADR-0021 where it was decided.
 
 ## No measurement stands behind these rows
 
@@ -96,28 +102,22 @@ status.
 | E-10 | **The claim.** An invented counterposition gives an answer the shape of an argument without the substance of one. A stack of qualifications buries the one that would change what the reader does. A passive verb with no actor leaves nobody holding the claim. | What a departure looks like |  |  | Our own guidance, the departure from E-03 |  |
 | E-11 | **Earned structure.** A heading over two sentences, and a sentence announcing that a point is important, each perform a thoroughness the content has not reached. | What a departure looks like |  |  | Our own guidance, the departure from E-04 |  |
 | E-12 | **The end.** A closing paragraph that re-says the page gives the reader a second reading of the first. | What a departure looks like |  |  | Our own guidance, the departure from E-05 |  |
-| E-13 | One test settles most of them. Remove the sentence, read the passage again, and keep the sentence only if something changed. | What a departure looks like |  |  | Our own guidance, and it is the one mechanical test here |  |
+| E-13 | Remove the sentence, read the passage again, and keep the sentence only if something changed. | What a departure looks like |  |  | Our own guidance, and it is the one mechanical test here |  |
 | E-14 | Compression has a cost, so name it | Compression has a cost, so name it |  |  | Our own guidance, written as a section title |  |
 | E-15 | The shape above is not a shorter passage. It is a passage whose length is its content. | Compression has a cost, so name it |  |  | Our own guidance, and it refuses a reading of the shape |  |
-| E-16 | Anthropic reported in April 2026 that a system instruction imposing strict brevity in Claude Code reduced coding quality, and reverted it. That is a first-party report of compression paid for in correctness. So the shape above sets no length, and a finding that a shorter passage would have dropped stays in. | Compression has a cost, so name it |  |  | Our own guidance, on a report SOURCE.md records as unread here |  |
-| E-17 | Counting belongs in `bench/score.mjs` in the stylewright repository, where a scorer counts and asserts nothing. A word becomes a rule in a skill only after a promoted study says it should. | No part of this matches a word |  |  | Our own guidance, and ADR-0021 decided it |  |
-| E-18 | Read the shape here as discipline that we assert. Do not read any of it as an effect that we observed, and do not let a later summary say that this skill works. | What stands behind this shape |  |  | Our own guidance, and it instructs the reader how to read the skill |  |
-| E-19 | The disagreement is about repetition. Both standards ask a writer to repeat, in a summary, in a heading, or in one term used for one thing. This skill ends a passage at its last load-bearing sentence. A procedure and a safety notice repeat on purpose, so the standard wins there and this skill yields. | How this differs from the other skills here |  |  | Our own guidance, and it rules on which skill wins |  |
-| E-20 | `compressed-deliberation` treats one model's documented defaults, and it expires when that model does. `proportionate-execution` governs a session, so it holds what an agent does as well as what it writes. This skill treats one passage of prose, whatever produced it, and it carries no model pin. Follow all three. They do not disagree. | How this differs from the other skills here |  |  | Our own guidance, and it instructs the reader to follow all three |  |
+| E-16 | Anthropic reported in April 2026 that a system instruction imposing strict brevity in Claude Code reduced coding quality, and reverted it. That is a first-party report of compression paid for in correctness. So the shape above sets no length, and a finding that a shorter passage would have dropped stays in. | Compression has a cost, so name it |  |  | Our own guidance, on a report the source record records as unread here |  |
+| E-17 | `plain-language` and `simplified-technical-english` each distil a published standard and write for a named reader. This skill does neither, and the disagreement is about repetition. Both standards ask a writer to repeat, in a summary, in a heading, or in one term used for one thing. This skill ends a passage at its last load-bearing sentence. A procedure and a safety notice repeat on purpose, so the standard wins there and this skill yields. | How this differs from the other skills here |  |  | Our own guidance, and it rules on which skill wins |  |
+| E-18 | `compressed-deliberation` treats one model's documented defaults, and it expires when that model does. `proportionate-execution` governs a session, so it holds what an agent does as well as what it writes. This skill treats one passage of prose, whatever produced it, and it carries no model pin. Follow all three. They do not disagree. | How this differs from the other skills here |  |  | Our own guidance, and it instructs the reader to follow all three |  |
+| E-19 | Read the shape here as discipline that we assert. Do not read any of it as an effect that we observed, and do not let a later summary say that this skill works. | Boundary |  |  | Our own guidance, and it instructs the reader how to read the skill |  |
 | N-01 | de-slop | de-slop |  |  | Section title, asserts no rule |  |
 | N-02 | Purpose | Purpose |  |  | Section title, asserts no rule |  |
 | N-03 | The defect this skill treats is a rhetorical move rather than a word, so this skill gives a shape to write toward rather than a vocabulary to avoid. A move survives a model release. Whether a word does is not settled. | Purpose |  |  | States what this skill treats and what form it takes, asserts no rule |  |
 | N-04 | The shape of a finished passage | The shape of a finished passage |  |  | Section title, asserts no rule |  |
 | N-05 | What a departure looks like | What a departure looks like |  |  | Section title, asserts no rule |  |
 | N-06 | No part of this matches a word | No part of this matches a word |  |  | Section title, asserts no rule |  |
-| N-07 | This skill ships no word list. | No part of this matches a word |  |  | Describes this skill, asserts no rule |  |
-| N-08 | A word that one setting overuses is countable, and that makes it tempting to ship. Two things argue against carrying it in a skill. A list of forbidden words teaches an agent to swap each one for its nearest neighbour, which leaves the defect and cleans the surface. A word may also recur in a setting rather than in a model, which is the live reading here rather than a finding. On that reading a shipped list dates faster than the shape above. | No part of this matches a word |  |  | Argues for the decision above at the strength ADR-0021 states it, asserts no rule |  |
-| N-09 | What a check can see | What a check can see |  |  | Section title, asserts no rule |  |
-| N-10 | Nothing here, today. `stylewright lint` carries no check for any part of the shape above, because a triad, a restatement and an invented objection are judgments about content rather than shapes a program recognises. | What a check can see |  |  | States what the tool does not do, asserts no rule |  |
-| N-11 | So this skill is the generative half on its own. | What a check can see |  |  | Describes how this skill reaches a reader, asserts no rule |  |
-| N-12 | What stands behind this shape | What stands behind this shape |  |  | Section title, asserts no rule |  |
-| N-13 | Nothing measured. A craft rule has no standard behind it, so measurement is the only evidence it can ever have, and no arm has been run for this skill. | What stands behind this shape |  |  | States the evidence, asserts no rule |  |
-| N-14 | How this differs from the other skills here | How this differs from the other skills here |  |  | Section title, asserts no rule |  |
-| N-15 | `plain-language` and `simplified-technical-english` each distil a published standard, and each writes for a named reader. This skill has no standard and no named reader. | How this differs from the other skills here |  |  | Relates three skills, asserts no rule |  |
-| N-16 | Boundary | Boundary |  |  | Section title, asserts no rule |  |
-| N-17 | This skill has no external standard behind it. Every rule in it is our own editorial guidance, and the trace marks the rest as narrative that asserts no rule. The trace lives in the stylewright repository at `grounding/craft/de-slop.md`. It is not installed with this skill. | Boundary |  |  | Describes the trace, asserts no rule |  |
+| N-07 | This skill ships no word list. A list of forbidden words teaches an agent to swap each one for its nearest neighbour, which leaves the defect and cleans the surface. | No part of this matches a word |  |  | Describes this skill and argues for the decision at the strength ADR-0021 states it, asserts no rule |  |
+| N-08 | What a check can see | What a check can see |  |  | Section title, asserts no rule |  |
+| N-09 | Nothing here, today. `stylewright lint` carries no check for any part of the shape above, because a triad, a restatement and an invented objection are judgments about content rather than shapes a program recognises. | What a check can see |  |  | States what the tool does not do, asserts no rule |  |
+| N-10 | How this differs from the other skills here | How this differs from the other skills here |  |  | Section title, asserts no rule |  |
+| N-11 | Boundary | Boundary |  |  | Section title, asserts no rule |  |
+| N-12 | This skill has no external standard behind it, and no arm has been run for it. Every rule in it is our own editorial guidance, and measurement is the only evidence a craft rule can ever have. The trace marks the rest as narrative that asserts no rule. It lives in the stylewright repository at `grounding/craft/de-slop.md`, and it is not installed with this skill. | Boundary |  |  | States the evidence and describes the trace, asserts no rule |  |

grounding/craft/subagent-returns.md

@@ -30,9 +30,9 @@ as obvious.
 
 A vendor page reporting how much a model writes would not change that. Such a
 page describes a model and prescribes nothing, which is the distinction
-`grounding/craft/compressed-deliberation.md` records for the seven `G` rows it
-does carry. A contributor who finds a real source for a rule here adds the
-source record before adding the row.
+`grounding/craft/compressed-deliberation.md` records for the vendor material
+its own skill used to carry. A contributor who finds a real source for a rule
+here adds the source record before adding the row.
 
 ## Where the line between an `E` row and an `N` row falls here
 

skills/craft/compressed-deliberation/SKILL.md

@@ -17,27 +17,16 @@ when it expires, lives in the stylewright repository at
 
 ## What this corrects
 
-Anthropic publishes these as differences in Claude Opus 5. They describe the
-model. They prescribe nothing, and no rule below inherits their authority.
-
-- Claude Opus 5 writes longer visible responses than earlier Opus models.
-- It writes longer reports, summaries, and files to disk.
-- It announces what it is about to do more often during agentic work.
-- It verifies its own work without being asked.
-- It narrates its own corrections more often.
-- It can widen a task past what the reader asked for.
-- A lower effort setting does not reliably shorten the visible answer.
-
-Those are the documented defaults. What our own baseline found is narrower and
-partly different: an unguided run was already clean, and an operator instruction
-stack above it was what inflated the reply. So read the rules below as aimed at
-the whole stack you are running inside, and not at the model alone.
-
-Where the rules have been measured: single-turn replies, one prompt each, five
-runs. Not agentic sessions, and not files written to disk. The second is the
-case that record names as the one the vendor documents most clearly, and the one
-we have tested least, so apply the rules there on their reasoning, not on our
-evidence.
+Read the rules below as aimed at the whole stack you are running inside, and
+not at the model alone. Our own baseline found an unguided run already clean,
+and an operator instruction stack above it was what inflated the reply. The
+source record carries the vendor's documentation of the defaults this skill
+answers, and that documentation describes a model rather than prescribing
+anything.
+
+Apply the rules to an agentic session, or to a file written to disk, on their
+reasoning and not on our evidence. What we measured is single-turn replies, one
+prompt each, five runs, so those two cases are the ones we have tested least.
 
 ## The shape of a reply
 
@@ -47,23 +36,15 @@ evidence.
 - Write a claim as a sentence, and never as a section.
 - Do not restate the request, the context, or anything the reader just supplied.
 - Stop when the result and the support it rests on are on the page.
+- **Conceding a correction.** Concede in the first sentence, do not argue the point again, say what the correction changes downstream, and then stop.
+- **Surfacing a decision.** Surface one only when you will stop and wait for the answer. Give the options, the recommendation, and the belief it rests on.
 
 ## Reporting finished work
 
 - Report a finished change as the result, and then the evidence that the result holds.
 - Name what you verified in one clause, and not under a heading.
 - Report an unchecked risk only when it could bite, and lead with it.
 
-## Conceding a correction
-
-- Concede in the first sentence, and do not argue the point again.
-- Say what the correction changes downstream, and then stop.
-
-## Surfacing a decision
-
-- Surface a decision only when you will stop and wait for the answer.
-- Give the options, the recommendation, and the belief the recommendation rests on.
-
 ## What this skill does not ask for
 
 - Do not set a word budget, because a budget cuts substance before it cuts scaffolding.
@@ -78,7 +59,6 @@ does. Follow both. They do not disagree.
 
 ## Boundary
 
-Only the section named "What this corrects" traces to a published source, and it
-traces for description alone. Every rule in this skill is our own editorial
-guidance. The trace lives in the stylewright repository at
+Every rule in this skill is our own editorial guidance, and no part of it
+traces to a published source. The trace lives in the stylewright repository at
 `grounding/craft/compressed-deliberation.md`. It is not installed with this skill.