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diff --git a/inbox/PROCESSED-2026-07-23-2127-from-home-rulesets-voice-correspondence-patterns.org b/inbox/PROCESSED-2026-07-23-2127-from-home-rulesets-voice-correspondence-patterns.org new file mode 100644 index 0000000..72beba6 --- /dev/null +++ b/inbox/PROCESSED-2026-07-23-2127-from-home-rulesets-voice-correspondence-patterns.org @@ -0,0 +1,85 @@ +#+TITLE: Proposal — two correspondence patterns for the voice skill (prose mode) + +* What this is + +Craig taught two structural rules while I drafted a Signal reply for him on +2026-07-23. They aren't in the voice skill yet. He asked whether they belong in +=/voice personal=; I said no, because personal mode is publish artifacts only +(commits, PR titles and bodies, PR review comments) and email and Signal are +prose mode. Sending the proposal here since rulesets owns =voice/=. + +I did *not* edit =~/code/rulesets/voice/SKILL.md= from the home session. The +=~/.claude/skills/voice= symlink points straight at the canonical, so a local +"stopgap" edit would have been an unflagged write into rulesets' scope. Home +carries a memory as its stopgap instead. + +* The two rules, as Craig stated them + +1. *Order by what matters most to the recipient*, not by what's easiest to + answer or the order they wrote it. Their news outranks your logistics. A + direct question they asked can sort *below* personal news they shared. +2. *Group each topic into one paragraph.* Everything on a subject goes + together rather than fragmenting across several paragraphs. + +* The worked case + +His sister sent a long catch-up: 30+ lbs lost, a deep from-scratch cooking run +(sourdough, English muffins, tortillas, home-roasted deli meat), a mixer she's +considering, and one direct question about whether he subscribes to MasterClass. + +My first draft opened with the MasterClass answer, because it was the only +explicit question, and split the cooking material across three paragraphs. + +Craig reordered it: weight first, then one paragraph carrying the entire cooking +thread, then MasterClass, then the personal close. His framing was "start with +what would be the most important things to her." + +The lesson is that leading with the easy answer reads as transactional, and a +topic split across paragraphs reads as a checklist rather than a person talking. + +* The conflict that needs resolving in the same edit + +Pattern #43 currently reads, in part: + +#+begin_quote +Never merge short paragraphs into multi-sentence ones in a "clean prose" pass +(corpus: 41-74% of Craig's paragraphs are exactly one sentence, depending on +register). +#+end_quote + +Rule 2 above is a merge instruction. Taken naively the two patterns contradict, +and a future run gets whipsawed. + +They aren't actually in conflict, but the boundary has to be stated or the +skill can't act on both: + +- *#43 governs an angle shift.* A one-sentence paragraph stands when the next + thought moves to a different subject. Craig's openers and closers stay + one-sentence, and they did in the final draft. +- *The new rule governs one topic that got fragmented.* Three paragraphs all + about cooking become one. + +Proposed formulation: same topic → one paragraph. New angle → new paragraph. +Whichever way this is written, #43's "never merge" line needs a qualifier +pointing at the new pattern, or it will keep reading as absolute. + +* Scope + +These govern *correspondence* (email, Signal, letters), which is narrower than +prose mode's current surface. Prose mode also covers journals, working notes, +and documents with no recipient, where "order by what matters to the recipient" +has no referent. Worth deciding whether that's a tag on the two patterns, a +sub-mode, or just a sentence in each rule. + +* What I'd suggest, but rulesets owns the call + +Two new prose-mode patterns, correspondence-scoped, plus a one-line qualifier on +#43 naming the boundary. Numbering and the profile entries are yours. The +=voice-profile.org= side wants the worked before/after above, since the +reordering is the whole lesson and it doesn't survive as a rule line alone. + +* Provenance + +home session 2026-07-23, drafting a Signal reply to Craig's sister. Home holds a +=correspondence-structure-rules= memory as its interim, marked as pending this +proposal. diff --git a/inbox/PROCESSED-2026-07-23-2132-from-home-rulesets-voice-correspondence-followup.org b/inbox/PROCESSED-2026-07-23-2132-from-home-rulesets-voice-correspondence-followup.org new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1dfc788 --- /dev/null +++ b/inbox/PROCESSED-2026-07-23-2132-from-home-rulesets-voice-correspondence-followup.org @@ -0,0 +1,102 @@ +#+TITLE: Follow-up — better design for the correspondence patterns (supersedes the earlier proposal) + +* What this supersedes + +The 2026-07-23 21:27 handoff from home, =rulesets-voice-correspondence-patterns.org=. +That one proposed *two* new prose-mode patterns and flagged a conflict with #43 +to be resolved. It asked the right question and proposed a worse answer. Craig +and I worked it further the same evening. Take this design instead. + +* The reconciliation: there was no conflict + +I claimed rule 2 ("group each topic into one paragraph") contradicted #43 +("never merge short paragraphs"). It doesn't. + +#43 already carries the answer in the phrase *"when the next thought shifts +angle."* The failure was reading "angle" at sentence granularity. Moving from +her baking to the mixer to tortillas felt like three angles when I drafted it. +It isn't. That's one topic with three facets. Moving from cooking to MasterClass +is a real shift. + +So the fix is calibration, not a new competing rule: *angle means topic, not +sentence.* + +Read that way the two rules are one rule seen from both sides. #43 protects the +break *between* topics, which is where Craig's cadence actually lives. The +grouping behavior fills in what happens *within* a topic, which #43 never +specified and I filled in wrong. + +* The evidence is in the final draft + +Every one-sentence paragraph survived Craig's edit: the weight-loss opener, the +MasterClass answer, the "I miss you and I love you" line, the closing ask for +call times. Each is its own topic. + +The only merge was three paragraphs that were all cooking. + +So his edit didn't violate #43. It corrected my misreading of it. That's the +strongest argument for folding this into #43 rather than adding a rule beside +it: a pattern that has to be reconciled against its neighbor is a pattern that +gets misapplied, and this one already was. + +* Proposed change (smaller than the first proposal) + +*One new pattern — recipient-priority ordering.* Correspondence-scoped, prose +mode. Nothing in the skill covers it today. + +#+begin_quote +In a reply, lead with what matters most to the recipient, not with what's +easiest to answer or the order they wrote it. Their news outranks your +logistics. A direct question they asked can sort below personal news they +shared, because the news is what they care about. +#+end_quote + +Scope note: this needs a recipient, so it applies to email, Signal, and letters. +It has no referent in a journal, a working note, or a document addressed to +nobody, all of which prose mode also covers. Worth a tag or a scope sentence. + +*One clarification to #43 — not a new pattern.* Three edits to the existing rule: + +1. State that "shifts angle" means shifts *topic*. +2. Add that a single topic consolidates into one paragraph even when each + sentence in it is a complete thought. +3. Keep the never-merge line, re-framed as a protection *across topic + boundaries*, which is what it was always defending. + +* The guard (Craig's number) + +Within-topic consolidation must not produce a wall. Craig set the ceiling at +*about 5 to 6 sentences*, after which find a natural break and split there. + +Honest note on the worked example below: the cooking paragraph as sent runs +seven sentences, slightly over its own guard. Craig called it an exception +rather than re-cutting a message that had already gone out. The guard is the +rule, that paragraph is a hair over it, and both facts belong in the record. + +* Worked before/after (for voice-profile.org) + +Her message: 30+ lbs lost, a deep from-scratch cooking run (sourdough, English +muffins, tortillas, home-roasted deli meat), a mixer she's considering, and one +direct question about whether Craig subscribes to MasterClass. + +*My first draft* opened with the MasterClass answer, because it was the only +explicit question, and split the cooking material across three paragraphs. + +*Craig's order:* weight, then one paragraph carrying the entire cooking thread, +then MasterClass, then the personal close. His framing: "start with what would +be the most important things to her." + +The lesson: leading with the easy answer reads as transactional, and one topic +split across paragraphs reads as a checklist rather than a person talking. + +* Mode confirmation + +Prose, confirmed with Craig. Personal mode stays publish artifacts only +(commits, PR titles and bodies, PR review comments). Email and Signal are prose. + +* Provenance + +home session 2026-07-23, drafting and sending a Signal reply to Craig's sister. +Home holds a =correspondence-structure-rules= memory as its interim; it will +want updating to match this design once rulesets lands it, since it currently +describes the earlier two-pattern framing. diff --git a/voice/SKILL.md b/voice/SKILL.md index fe5d48a..10e8fd6 100644 --- a/voice/SKILL.md +++ b/voice/SKILL.md @@ -1,7 +1,7 @@ --- name: voice description: | - Multi-pass prose editor with three modes. General mode (default) edits arbitrary writing — research notes, essays, anyone's README prose — by walking 31 patterns: Wikipedia's Signs of AI Writing patterns plus universal good-writing rules (long-word → short-word, active-over-passive, comma splices, cliché flag, jargon-fragment-in-prose rewrite, corporate-speak nominalizations). Prose mode adds Craig's writing-voice patterns for prose he authors or sends — emails, documents, notes — on top of general (em-dash zero-tolerance, no-emphasis-formatting, contractions, semicolons → periods, sentence-split, felt-experience cut, sentence-fragment rewrite, terse-cut, single-sentence cadence, parenthetical asides, declarative-register marker). Personal mode is for publish artifacts only (commits, PR titles + bodies, PR review comments) and adds the artifact-mechanics patterns on top of prose (first-person rewrite, public-artifact scope flag, praise/correction asymmetry, finding stems, comma budget) plus per-artifact terseness budgets. Total 46 patterns; one editorial review covers all relevant ones for the chosen mode, with an attestation receipt for the high-recurrence set. Replaces the standalone humanizer skill. Use when editing prose. Do NOT use for code, structured data, or plain bullet lists where fragments are valid. + Multi-pass prose editor with three modes. General mode (default) edits arbitrary writing — research notes, essays, anyone's README prose — by walking 31 patterns: Wikipedia's Signs of AI Writing patterns plus universal good-writing rules (long-word → short-word, active-over-passive, comma splices, cliché flag, jargon-fragment-in-prose rewrite, corporate-speak nominalizations). Prose mode adds Craig's writing-voice patterns for prose he authors or sends — emails, documents, notes — on top of general (em-dash zero-tolerance, no-emphasis-formatting, contractions, semicolons → periods, sentence-split, felt-experience cut, sentence-fragment rewrite, terse-cut, single-sentence cadence, parenthetical asides, declarative-register marker). Personal mode is for publish artifacts only (commits, PR titles + bodies, PR review comments) and adds the artifact-mechanics patterns on top of prose (first-person rewrite, public-artifact scope flag, praise/correction asymmetry, finding stems, comma budget) plus per-artifact terseness budgets. Prose mode also carries one correspondence-only pattern (recipient-priority ordering) that personal mode skips. Total 47 patterns; one editorial review covers all relevant ones for the chosen mode, with an attestation receipt for the high-recurrence set. Replaces the standalone humanizer skill. Use when editing prose. Do NOT use for code, structured data, or plain bullet lists where fragments are valid. allowed-tools: - Read - Write @@ -31,8 +31,8 @@ This skill is split across two files by design. Three modes determine which patterns to walk. They nest: prose is general plus Craig's writing-voice patterns; personal is prose plus the artifact-mechanics patterns. - **General** (default) — apply patterns **#1-31**. Use for writing whose author isn't Craig and that isn't a publish artifact: research notes you're editing for someone else, a quoted passage, README prose for a shared project, any third-party text. Output is well-edited human-sounding prose, but does not impose Craig's voice (first-person, contractions, em-dash elimination) — those conflict with academic, literary, or formal registers that aren't his. -- **Prose** — apply **#1-31** plus the patterns tagged **(prose + personal)**: em-dash zero-tolerance (#13), contractions (#34), semicolons → periods (#33), sentence-split (#35), felt-experience cut (#36), sentence-fragment rewrite (#37), terse-cut (#38), no-emphasis-formatting (#41), single-sentence cadence (#43), parenthetical asides (#44), and the declarative-register marker (#45). Use for prose Craig authors or sends in his own voice that isn't a publish artifact: emails, documents he writes or hands to someone, working notes, journal entries. This is the mode that finally applies his actual writing voice to the documents he most wants it on. It skips the artifact-mechanics patterns (#32, #39, #40, #42) — those assume a commit or PR and misfire on free prose (a document is legitimately third-person; a journal has no public-scope concern; praise/correction asymmetry and finding stems are PR-review rules). -- **Personal** — apply all **#1-46**. Use only for publish artifacts: commits, PR titles + bodies, and PR review comments. Adds the artifact-mechanics patterns (#32 first-person rewrite, #39 public-artifact scope flag, #40 praise/correction asymmetry, #42 finding stems, #46 comma budget) on top of everything prose mode walks. +- **Prose** — apply **#1-31** plus the patterns tagged **(prose + personal)**: em-dash zero-tolerance (#13), contractions (#34), semicolons → periods (#33), sentence-split (#35), felt-experience cut (#36), sentence-fragment rewrite (#37), terse-cut (#38), no-emphasis-formatting (#41), single-sentence cadence (#43), parenthetical asides (#44), and the declarative-register marker (#45) — plus **#47 (recipient-priority ordering)** when the piece is correspondence (email, Signal, a letter). Use for prose Craig authors or sends in his own voice that isn't a publish artifact: emails, documents he writes or hands to someone, working notes, journal entries. This is the mode that finally applies his actual writing voice to the documents he most wants it on. It skips the artifact-mechanics patterns (#32, #39, #40, #42) — those assume a commit or PR and misfire on free prose (a document is legitimately third-person; a journal has no public-scope concern; praise/correction asymmetry and finding stems are PR-review rules). +- **Personal** — apply **#1-46**. Use only for publish artifacts: commits, PR titles + bodies, and PR review comments. Adds the artifact-mechanics patterns (#32 first-person rewrite, #39 public-artifact scope flag, #40 praise/correction asymmetry, #42 finding stems, #46 comma budget) on top of everything prose mode walks. #47 is the lone exception to the nesting — it is correspondence-only, and a publish artifact is never a reply to someone's news, so personal mode stops at #46. If invoked without a mode argument, default to general. Prose mode is invoked explicitly with `/voice prose` (emails, authored documents). Personal-context callers (`commits.md` publish flow, `respond-to-cj-comments.md`) invoke `/voice personal`. @@ -53,7 +53,7 @@ Terse is a budget, not an adjective. Each publish-artifact type has a target sha When given text to edit: -1. **Identify which patterns apply** — Scan for the patterns numbered below. General mode walks #1-31 only. Prose mode adds the patterns tagged **(prose + personal)**. Personal mode adds those *and* the ones tagged **(personal only)** — i.e. all 46. +1. **Identify which patterns apply** — Scan for the patterns numbered below. General mode walks #1-31 only. Prose mode adds the patterns tagged **(prose + personal)**, plus #47 when the piece is correspondence. Personal mode adds the **(personal only)** ones instead — patterns #1-46, never #47. 2. **Rewrite problematic sections** — Replace each detected pattern with its rewrite. 3. **Preserve meaning** — Keep the core message intact. 4. **Maintain voice** — Match the intended tone (formal, casual, technical, academic, literary). @@ -296,7 +296,7 @@ See `voice/references/voice-profile.org` §31 for problem, basis, examples, and ## Craig's Voice (prose + personal modes) -These patterns carry Craig's writing voice. Most apply in **both** prose mode (emails, documents, notes he authors) and personal mode (commits, PRs, PR comments) — tagged **(prose + personal)**. Five are publish-artifact-specific — tagged **(personal only)** — because they assume a commit or PR and misfire on free prose: #32 (first-person rewrite) wrongly imposes "I did X" voice on a document that's legitimately third-person, #39 (public-artifact scope flag) has nothing to guard in a private journal, #40 (praise/correction asymmetry) and #42 (finding stems) are PR-review rules, and #46 (comma budget) is scoped to publish artifacts by Craig's 2026-07-20 directive. General mode skips all of them — it edits text that isn't Craig's, where contractions, em-dash elimination, and first-person would conflict with academic, literary, or formal registers. +These patterns carry Craig's writing voice. Most apply in **both** prose mode (emails, documents, notes he authors) and personal mode (commits, PRs, PR comments) — tagged **(prose + personal)**. Five are publish-artifact-specific — tagged **(personal only)** — because they assume a commit or PR and misfire on free prose: #32 (first-person rewrite) wrongly imposes "I did X" voice on a document that's legitimately third-person, #39 (public-artifact scope flag) has nothing to guard in a private journal, #40 (praise/correction asymmetry) and #42 (finding stems) are PR-review rules, and #46 (comma budget) is scoped to publish artifacts by Craig's 2026-07-20 directive. One — #47 (recipient-priority ordering) — runs the other way: prose-only and narrower still, firing solely on correspondence, because ordering a reply around the recipient's news has no meaning for a commit or a document addressed to nobody. General mode skips all of them — it edits text that isn't Craig's, where contractions, em-dash elimination, and first-person would conflict with academic, literary, or formal registers. ### 32. First-Person Voice Rewrite [personal] @@ -366,7 +366,7 @@ See `voice/references/voice-profile.org` §42 for problem, basis, examples, and ### 43. Single-Sentence Paragraph Cadence Is a Feature [prose · personal] -**Rule.** A one-sentence paragraph is a finished thought, not a fragment. Break paragraphs after one complete thought when the next thought shifts angle, even if both are short. Never merge short paragraphs into multi-sentence ones in a "clean prose" pass (corpus: 41-74% of Craig's paragraphs are exactly one sentence, depending on register). +**Rule.** A one-sentence paragraph is a finished thought, not a fragment. "Shifts angle" means shifts *topic*: break paragraphs at a topic boundary, even when both sides are one sentence. Within a single topic, do the opposite — consolidate its sentences into one paragraph even when each is a complete thought, up to a ceiling of about five or six sentences, past which find a natural break. The never-merge instruction protects the break *between* topics, which is where Craig's cadence lives (corpus: 41-74% of his paragraphs are exactly one sentence, depending on register); it never licenses fragmenting one topic across several paragraphs. See #47 for the ordering of those topics in a reply. See `voice/references/voice-profile.org` §43 for problem, basis, examples, and history. @@ -388,10 +388,16 @@ See `voice/references/voice-profile.org` §45 for problem, basis, examples, and See `voice/references/voice-profile.org` §46 for problem, basis, examples, and history. +### 47. Recipient-Priority Ordering [prose — correspondence only] + +**Rule.** In a reply, lead with what matters most to the *recipient*, not with what's easiest to answer or the order they wrote it. Their news outranks your logistics, and a direct question they asked can sort *below* personal news they shared, because the news is what they care about. Leading with the easy answer reads as transactional. Correspondence-scoped: it needs a recipient, so it fires on email, Signal, and letters, and has no referent in a journal, a working note, or any document addressed to nobody. This is the one prose-mode pattern that does not carry into personal mode — a commit or PR review is not a reply to someone's news. + +See `voice/references/voice-profile.org` §47 for problem, basis, examples, and history. + ## Process 1. Read the input text carefully. Confirm the mode (general, prose, or personal) — invocation argument or context. If a file path was given, that file is the deliverable: the final text gets written back to it in step 7. -2. Walk patterns 1-31 in general mode; add the (prose + personal) patterns in prose mode; walk all 46 patterns in personal mode. +2. Walk patterns 1-31 in general mode; add the (prose + personal) patterns in prose mode, plus #47 when the piece is correspondence; walk patterns 1-46 in personal mode. 3. For each pattern, scan the text. If a match is found, rewrite it according to the pattern's rule. Patterns #39 and #45 emit flags without rewriting. 4. After walking all patterns, ensure the revised text: - Sounds natural when read aloud @@ -488,6 +494,7 @@ This skill draws from: - Garner, *Modern English Usage* — pattern #26 (word-pair preferences). - Craig's voice rules from `claude-rules/commits.md` (Voice and Focus section) — patterns #32-42, split across prose mode (his authored prose and email) and personal mode (publish artifacts). - Craig's directive, 2026-07-20 (archsetup session) — pattern #46 (comma budget), personal mode. +- Craig's edit of a Signal reply, 2026-07-23 (home session) — pattern #47 (recipient-priority ordering) and the #43 topic-vs-angle calibration, prose/correspondence. - Corpus measurement (2026-05-29 phases 1-2, documented in the profile) — patterns #43-45 and the calibration notes on #7, #13, #33. Key insight (Wikipedia, paraphrased): LLMs use statistical algorithms to guess what should come next. The result tends toward the most statistically likely text that applies to the widest variety of cases. Patterns #1-25 detect that signature. diff --git a/voice/references/voice-profile.org b/voice/references/voice-profile.org index 3907edf..3dfddf2 100644 --- a/voice/references/voice-profile.org +++ b/voice/references/voice-profile.org @@ -1444,11 +1444,13 @@ In a PR review finding: a sentence carrying more than one claim (chained through Prose and personal modes. General mode skips because third-party registers legitimately prefer multi-sentence paragraphs. *** Rule -A one-sentence paragraph is a finished thought, not a fragment. Break paragraphs after one complete thought when the next thought shifts angle, even if both are short. Never merge short paragraphs into multi-sentence ones in a "clean prose" pass. +A one-sentence paragraph is a finished thought, not a fragment. "Shifts angle" means shifts *topic*: break paragraphs at a topic boundary, even when both sides are one sentence. Within a single topic, consolidate its sentences into one paragraph even when each is complete, up to a ceiling of about five or six sentences, past which find a natural break. The never-merge instruction protects the break *between* topics; it never licenses fragmenting one topic across several paragraphs. *** Problem Most prose-style guides advise multi-sentence paragraphs, so a generic cleanup pass merges Craig's short paragraphs and erases a distinctive feature of his voice. This is a protective pattern: it guards an existing trait rather than correcting a defect. +The 2026-07-23 boundary refinement addresses the opposite failure, discovered the same day: reading "angle" at *sentence* granularity, so that three sentences all about one topic (a baking run, a mixer, tortillas) got split into three paragraphs as if each were a new angle. That fragments one topic and reads as a checklist rather than a person talking. Angle means topic. #43 governs the break between topics; consolidation fills in what happens within one, which the original rule never specified. The two are one rule seen from both sides, not a rule in tension with #47. + *** Basis Corpus-measured (2026-05-29). Single-sentence-paragraph rate: git commits 41.1%, personal email 57.4%, work email 44.5%, PR descriptions 74.4%, PR review comments 50.0%. Between 41% and 74% of Craig's paragraphs are exactly one sentence, depending on register. @@ -1470,6 +1472,7 @@ An edit pass that merged short paragraphs, or a draft whose paragraphs each stac *** History - 2026-05-29: surfaced by the Phase 1-2 corpus measurement as a "worth adding" trait; filed as suggested delta 4. - 2026-06-10: promoted from the suggested-deltas list into a numbered pattern. Craig's call, from the work-project session. +- 2026-07-23: boundary refined (angle means topic; within-topic consolidation to a ~5-6 sentence ceiling; never-merge reframed as across-topic protection). From a home session drafting a Signal reply, where the original rule was misread at sentence granularity. Paired with the new §47. ** §44 Parenthetical Asides Are Part of the Voice @@ -1562,3 +1565,49 @@ Count commas per sentence on the final text. A sentence at three or more gets re *** History - 2026-07-20: added at Craig's direction from the archsetup session. Scoped to personal mode; broaden to prose only if he asks. Added to the attestation high-recurrence set at birth — a mechanical count is cheap to receipt, and new discipline fails silently without one. + +** §47 Recipient-Priority Ordering + +*** Modes +Prose mode, and only when the piece is correspondence (email, Signal, a letter). It needs a recipient, so it has no referent in a journal, a working note, or any document addressed to nobody, and it does not carry into personal mode — a commit or PR review is not a reply to someone's news. General mode skips it with the rest of Craig's voice patterns. This is the one pattern narrower than a whole mode, and the only prose pattern personal mode does not also walk. + +*** Rule +In a reply, lead with what matters most to the recipient, not with what's easiest to answer or the order they wrote it. Their news outranks your logistics. A direct question they asked can sort below personal news they shared, because the news is what they care about. + +*** Problem +The easy draft answers the explicit question first and orders the rest as it arrived. That reads as transactional — logistics before the person. Ordering by what the recipient cares about is what makes a reply read as one person talking to another rather than a ticket being closed. Nothing else in the skill governs the *order* of a reply's contents; the other patterns act within a paragraph or a sentence. + +*** Basis +Craig's edit of a Signal reply to his sister, 2026-07-23 (home session). His framing: "start with what would be the most important things to her." + +*** Before (first draft — opens with the only explicit question, cooking split across three paragraphs) +#+begin_example +Yes, I do subscribe to MasterClass — happy to share what I've watched. + +That's amazing about the sourdough. English muffins from scratch is no joke. + +The home-roasted deli meat sounds incredible. + +A stand mixer would make the bread a lot easier — worth it if you're baking this much. + +And 30 pounds — that's huge. So happy for you. +#+end_example + +*** After (Craig's order — weight first, one cooking paragraph, then the question, then the close) +#+begin_example +Thirty-plus pounds — that is huge, and I'm so happy for you. That's real work. + +And the cooking. Sourdough, English muffins, tortillas, home-roasted deli meat from scratch — that's a whole kitchen you've built, and a stand mixer would make the bread much easier if you're baking at this volume, so I say go for it. I want to hear how the tortillas come out. + +Yes, I subscribe to MasterClass — I'll send you what I've been watching. + +I miss you and I love you. Send me a few times that work for a call. +#+end_example + +The cooking paragraph runs seven sentences, a hair over the §43 ceiling. Craig called it an exception rather than re-cut a message that had already gone out. The guard is the rule; this paragraph is one sentence over it; both facts stay in the record, because a real example at the boundary teaches it better than a clean one. + +*** Detection +A reply whose opening answers a logistical or yes/no question while the recipient's substantive news sits lower. Reorder so the news they'd most want acknowledged leads. + +*** History +- 2026-07-23: added from the home session drafting a Signal reply. The first handoff proposed two new patterns and flagged a conflict with §43; the superseding design resolved that the conflict was a misreading of §43 (angle = topic), leaving one genuinely new pattern here and a calibration to §43. Prose/correspondence-scoped per Craig — email and Signal are prose, not publish artifacts. |