Grounded Writing

Grounded Writing

Core principle

Make the reasoning visible at the scale the artifact supports. Build clear, evidence-led writing in a conversational tone, then remove anything invented, generic, or included only to imitate a personality.

Procedure

1. Confirm that the text is for the user to publish or send, or that the user explicitly requested an editorial review of their own draft. Apply this style at any length for publication or sending, including one-sentence review comments and replies. For an internal report review, apply the truth and material-edit checks without imposing public-documentation style. Do not apply the skill to an ordinary assistant reply, quoted source text, or prose attributed to someone else.
2. Read the style profile before drafting or revising.
3. Establish the audience, purpose, requested format, supplied facts, and the user's actual position. Preserve the requested artifact shape rather than turning every deliverable into a blog post.
4. In public developer documentation, explain the observable difference between settings and the practical trade-off in supported terms: what each gains and gives up, and when to choose each setting. For a publication review, name these as separate checks even when the draft lacks evidence to fill them in. In a review, explicitly recommend removing each implementation mechanic present in the draft that has no established reader-facing significance; merely identifying it as a mechanic leaves the edit ambiguous. If the draft lacks evidence for that choice, name the missing information instead of inferring it. Remove implementation, test, or diagnostic mechanics such as sampling thresholds, CPU masks, and interpolation details. Retain an observable transition or associated timing only when supplied or verified evidence shows it is part of the public contract or materially informs how to use or choose the setting. If a draft says one setting returns to another, preserve that observable transition conditionally while checking whether its timing is a public contract. Say that it returns to the other setting without carrying over a “cooldown” term or numeric delay unless that timing is verified as reader-facing behavior. Do not remove the return behavior merely because its implementation timing is unverified. Technical specificity alone does not establish public relevance. If relevance could change the recommendation but is unknown, flag it for verification rather than treating it as settled behavior. Describe retained effects in outcome terms and omit their implementation mechanics. Include a mechanic only when it is required for correct API use, necessary to distinguish a reader-facing setting choice, or explicitly requested. Do not ask to expand internal mechanics as a way to fill a public-documentation gap. Before drafting or revising public developer documentation, identify its public contracts and guarantees shared across alternatives, including compatibility expectations, and check that supported guarantees remain explicit in the result. If the source leaves a contract uncertain, verify it when research is in scope or flag the gap rather than silently dropping or inventing it. Retain the context needed to interpret claims. This boundary does not apply to internal design documents or technical reports.
5. Resolve missing material before writing:
   • Look up discoverable public facts when the task calls for research.
   • If a missing personal opinion or experience would materially change the text, ask the user and stop drafting that part.
   • If the gap is minor, use a conspicuous placeholder or state the uncertainty honestly. Never invent a first-person claim, result, preference, or memory.
6. Choose the register from the style profile. Match the length and formality to the destination; short working comments should remain short.
7. Shape the reasoning before polishing sentences. Prefer a concrete problem or observation, explain the mechanism, support it with evidence or an example, acknowledge the important limit, state the practical consequence, and end on the clearest remaining point. Omit any stage the artifact does not need. For a short comment, this may be only the actionable point and one supporting fact.
8. Use the user's default language and regional conventions unless the request specifies otherwise. Keep paragraphs focused, mix sentence lengths, use first person only when grounded, and make headings earn their place.
9. Edit once for style and once for truth. Remove generic scene-setting, marketing language, repeated conclusions, decorative catchphrases, and unsupported certainty. Treat the headline and opening claim as substantive: remove or qualify promotional framing that the supplied evidence does not directly support.
10. For a review that permits edits only for material clarity or truth problems, identify the exact claim that is false or the specific misreading that would prevent the document's intended use before touching the file. If neither is present, leave an adequate draft unchanged. Rewording an already usable instruction to make it more explicit is optional polish, not a material clarity fix. Do not turn an internal report into a rerun protocol: missing identifiers or reproducibility details justify an edit only when a stated claim or action depends on them. Do not add a placeholder for an unverified detail unless it blocks the draft's intended use. Explain the material facts, mechanism, and qualification that make a no-change result appropriate; a bare “no edit needed” does not show that the checks were completed.