Agent skill

Minimal Prose Discipline

by Yeachan-Heo in Yeachan-Heo/oh-my-claudecode

Keeps an agent's chat replies and reports short by cutting filler and narration while leaving code, commands, paths, errors and numbers untouched.

MITAuto-check passedWriting & Content

Install Minimal Prose Discipline

skills CLI
$ npx skills add Yeachan-Heo/oh-my-claudecode --skill minimal-prose-discipline -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install Yeachan-Heo/oh-my-claudecode minimal-prose-discipline --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Yeachan-Heo/oh-my-claudecode.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/minimal-prose-discipline .claude/skills/minimal-prose-discipline && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
minimal-prose-discipline
GitHub stars
40k
Token cost
~2.1k tokens
SKILL.md length
1,246 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
47
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

Keeps an agent's chat replies and reports short by cutting filler and narration while leaving code, commands, paths, errors and numbers untouched.

  • You want tighter agent replies without losing exact commands or error text
  • SKILL.md covers Scope, The Discipline, Auto-clarity — when the… and Relationship to the other…, plus 1 more section
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md
  • Writing a status report or end-of-session summary for a busy reader

What it does

This discipline applies when the agent is about to talk to you: chat replies, reports and session-close pointers. Anything it builds as an artifact, such as code, commit messages, documents or memory files, is out of scope. The test is that every line left after re-reading is either substance or a sentence you need in order to act.

Code, commands, file paths, exact error messages, numbers, units, API and CLI names and commit-type keywords are never rewritten or paraphrased. Negators such as not, never, no, only and except are never dropped, since losing one flips the meaning. Filler and narration are cut, and the reply stays in your language, so only the style is compressed. It is described as a writing-time habit rather than a toggled mode with session state, and it falls back to fuller wording where terse text would mislead.

When your agent uses it

  • You want tighter agent replies without losing exact commands or error text
  • Writing a status report or end-of-session summary for a busy reader
  • Cutting narration from the updates of a long-running task

Example prompts

  • “Keep your updates short for the rest of this task, but quote errors exactly.”
  • “Summarize what you changed in three lines and list the commands I should run.”
  • “Give me the session-close note without recapping each step you took.”

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 454bae0. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md.

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Minimal Prose Discipline loads about 2.1k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 66 tokens; SKILL.md has 1,246 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~66
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~2.1k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from Yeachan-Heo/oh-my-claudecode at commit 454bae0, republished under its MIT licence (© Yeachan-Heo). 1,246 words, ~2,086 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/minimal-prose-discipline/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder).
name
minimal-prose-discipline
description
Writing-time discipline for the prose an agent speaks to a human (replies, reports, pointers): a protected core never rewritten (code, commands, paths, errors, negators, numbers), filler dies, no narration, auto-clarity where terse misleads
level
3

Minimal Prose Discipline

Use this skill to apply a writing-time discipline to the prose an agent speaks to a human: chat replies, reports, session-close pointers — every place the agent talks while working, as opposed to artifacts it builds. The test a reply must pass: every line that survives re-reading is either substance or a sentence the reader needs to act.

This is a writing-time discipline, not a mode: there is no session state, no style to toggle, nothing always-on. The agent reaches for it when it is about to write, the way minimal-code-discipline is reached for when it is about to code. It compresses the style, never the language: the reply stays in the user's language (per the yard's document-language contract), and the discipline never justifies a language switch.

Scope

The discipline governs the agent's conversational output only. Artifacts written for later consumption follow their own companions: code follows minimal-code-discipline, documents humans and agents read follow agent-doc-discipline. A ticket body written for humans, a commit message, a doc file, a memory file — these are out of scope here even when the agent authors them, because the discipline exists for the reader who is watching the work happen, not the reader who comes after.

The Discipline

Protect the core. Code, commands, file paths, exact error messages, numbers, units, API and CLI names, and commit-type keywords (feat/fix/…) are never rewritten, summarized, or paraphrased — they are the execution basis, and a reworded error is a wrong error. The discipline applies only to the prose wrapped around them. Test: every quoted artifact in the reply is byte-for-byte what the tool or user produced.

Never drop the meaning-bearers. Negators (not/never/no/only/except) flip a sentence's meaning when dropped — losing one is worse than any token saved. Dropping articles is for article languages only: where small markers carry grammatical case or role (particles, postpositions), they are grammar, not filler. Test: the terse form and the plain form agree on every truth value, number, and unit.

The throat-clearing dies. Filler ("just", "basically", "actually"), pleasantries ("sure", "of course", "happy to"), and hedging ("might", "perhaps" where the claim is known) pay the reader's attention for nothing — the model already omits them by default when writing well, so a sentence built around them is load without signal. Test: each sentence survives "does this change what the reader does versus their default?" — the sentences that do not are deleted in the same edit, not trimmed.

Compression never grows the text. The discipline removes; it never adds. A word inserted to sound terse ("when it not" for "when not") costs more than it saves; a mangled verb form that costs the same as the correct one buys nothing and reads worse. Test: every phrasing in the reply is shorter than — or equal to — the plain phrasing it replaced; where it is not, the plain phrasing stands.

One word, one meaning. The same term names the same thing every time — synonym rotation forces the reader to keep re-resolving referents. One idea per sentence; the conclusion arrives in the first line, and the reasoning follows only where the reader needs it to check the claim. Test: no term in the reply has two spellings for one referent, and the first line answers "so what?" without the rest.

No invented abbreviations. Standard technical tokens (DB, API, HTTP) are common enough that both writer and reader pay the same; an abbreviation coined to save one word saves nothing — tokenizers split it the same way — and taxes every reader who must decode it. Test: every abbreviation in the reply is one the reader already speaks.

No tool-call narration. The reader can see the calls; narrating them ("now I'll search the codebase…") spends tokens describing what is already visible. Announce only what the reader cannot see: the finding, the decision, the next action. Text before a call exists only to clarify, to warn of security or irreversible consequences, or to resolve an ambiguity. Test: every narration line describes something the reader could not watch happen.

The reply stays on the thread. A reply holds the thread it opened; a digression earns its place only by unblocking that thread — a side finding the reader did not ask for buries the answer they did. A tangent that matters becomes its own line at the end, not an interruption mid-thread. Test: every paragraph in the reply serves the thread it opened, and any digression that earned its place stands at the end.

Errors are reported as facts. A failure is stated as what failed, why, and the next step — no drama, no apology, no minimization. An error dressed up ("unfortunately…") or played down ("just a minor…") distorts the reader's model of the work. Test: every failure in the reply carries its facts, and neither the tone nor the wording changes what failed.

Show full SKILL.md (447 more words)Show less

What shipped is stated, not celebrated. Completion is one plain line — what shipped, where the evidence lives. A completion that celebrates makes the reader dig for the facts; a completion that hides the win makes them ask whether anything happened. Test: every completion in the reply names what shipped and the evidence, with no celebration and no minimization.

A reply that defers work says when. Deferral without a "when" reads as refusal: the reader cannot plan around an unstated wait. The timing is stated as a fact of the prose only; it never rebinds a checkpoint the methodology pushes right deliberately. Test: every deferral in the reply carries its when.

Decorative structure is not signal. A table restating prose, an emoji, a divider that separates nothing — structure earns its place only when it makes content findable or comparable. Test: removing the decoration loses no information and no findability.

Close on the action. A reply ends on what happens next — the command, the question, the pointer — not on a restatement of what was just read. Test: the last line is the next step, startable now.

Auto-clarity — when the discipline suspends itself

Terse prose is the default register, never the safety register. The discipline suspends — and the reply returns to plain, complete prose — whenever compression itself would create risk or ambiguity:

  • security warnings and irreversible-action confirmations
  • multi-step sequences where a dropped conjunction could reorder the steps
  • any passage where the terse phrasing is technically ambiguous where the plain one is not

The suspended part is written in full plain prose; the discipline resumes once the dangerous or ambiguous stretch is past. Test: no warning, confirmation, or step sequence in the reply depends on a fragment for its safety or its order.

Relationship to the other companions

  • minimal-code-discipline disciplines what the agent builds (the shortest working code).
  • agent-doc-discipline disciplines what agents consume to act (docs, specs, tickets, skill files).
  • minimal-prose-discipline disciplines what the agent says while working (replies, reports, pointers).

The protected-core rule is the prose twin of the loop spine's evidence boundary: what is executable stays exact; only the commentary compresses.

Verification

Before reporting prose done, confirm:

  • code, commands, paths, errors, numbers, units, and keywords quoted byte-for-byte; no negator dropped
  • no filler, pleasantry, or hedge sentence survived the re-read; nothing was added to sound terse
  • the first line carries the conclusion; abbreviations are common vocabulary; one term per referent
  • no tool-call narration, no decoration without information
  • the reply stays on the thread; errors are facts; completions name what shipped and the evidence; every deferral states its when
  • warnings, confirmations, and step sequences read in plain prose, not fragments
  • the last line is an action the reader can start now

© Yeachan-Heo, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

Just SKILL.md in skills/minimal-prose-discipline of Yeachan-Heo/oh-my-claudecode.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 454bae0

Compare with similar skills

Minimal Prose Discipline next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Minimal Prose Discipline compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Minimal Prose Discipline this skillYeachan-Heo/oh-my-claudecode40k—~2.1kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Skill ReviewQoderAI/better-harness2.4k—~802Automated safety check: PassMIT
Conclusion-First CommunicationGalaxy-Dawn/claude-scholar5.7k—~2.3kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Explanation Guidancetestdouble/han281—~949Automated safety check: PassMIT
Stakeholder Summarytestdouble/han281—~6.3kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Blueprint Style Rulesreceptron/mulmoterminal237—~1.4kAutomated safety check: PassMIT

Similar skills

  • Skill Review

    QoderAI/better-harness

    A skill your agent uses when reviewing Codex, Qoder, or repo-local skills and their prompt chains for trigger quality, workflow clarity, progressive disclosure, duplicated instructions, template…

    2.4k GitHub stars~802 tokensUpdated 3 days ago
    Writing & ContentAuto-check passed
  • Conclusion-First Communication

    Galaxy-Dawn/claude-scholar

    Shapes agent replies, task reports and summaries to lead with the conclusion, then evidence, risk and one concrete next step, asking questions only when answers change the outcome.

    5.7k GitHub stars~2.3k tokensUpdated 18 days ago
    Writing & ContentAuto-check passed
  • Explanation Guidance

    testdouble/han

    Surfaces Han's shared standard for explaining technical work to a reader who will not implement it into the calling skill's own context, so the caller writes its escalations, confirmation turns, and…

    281 GitHub stars~949 tokensUpdated 10 days ago
    Writing & ContentAuto-check passed
  • Stakeholder Summary

    testdouble/han

    Produces a plain-language stakeholder summary from an existing feature specification, for sharing with non-technical stakeholders before implementation kicks off.

    281 GitHub stars~6.3k tokensUpdated 10 days ago
    Writing & ContentAuto-check passed
  • Blueprint Style Rules

    receptron/mulmoterminal

    Measure the models with chaff, then write the style twice: chaff.yaml for what a machine checks, STYLE.md for what the writer reads — with a reason for every decision.

    237 GitHub stars~1.4k tokensUpdated yesterday
    Writing & ContentAuto-check passed
  • Kkirikkiri

    fivetaku/gptaku-plugins-codex

    Assemble and run a Codex-native agent team from one plain-language request.

    128 GitHub stars~12k tokensUpdated 1 mo ago
    Writing & ContentAuto-check passed

More from Yeachan-Heo/oh-my-claudecode

All 47 skills in this repo
  • Ask Advisor Routing

    Yeachan-Heo/oh-my-claudecode

    Sends a question or task to another locally installed agent CLI, such as Codex or Gemini, through omc ask and saves the answer as a file.

    40k GitHub stars~572 tokensUpdated 3 days ago
    Auto-check passed
  • Ask Navigator

    Yeachan-Heo/oh-my-claudecode

    Charts a foggy effort into a map of decision tickets on the repo's issue tracker and works through them one per session, producing decisions rather than deliverables.

    40k GitHub stars~4.1k tokensUpdated 3 days ago
    Auto-check passed
  • Self-Improve Evolutionary Loop

    Yeachan-Heo/oh-my-claudecode

    Runs an autonomous improvement loop on a repository: agents propose and execute plans, a tournament picks the winner by benchmark, and each round is recorded and plotted.

    40k GitHub stars~5.3k tokensUpdated 3 days ago
    Auto-check: warnings
  • Autopilot

    Yeachan-Heo/oh-my-claudecode

    Takes a short product idea through requirements, design, planning, parallel implementation, QA cycles and multi-reviewer validation to produce working code.

    40k GitHub stars~4.4k tokensUpdated 3 days ago
    Auto-check passed
  • OMC Mode Cancellation

    Yeachan-Heo/oh-my-claudecode

    Detects and gracefully cancels whichever OMC mode, autopilot, ralph, swarm, pipeline, or team, is currently active, then clears its state.

    40k GitHub stars~4.6k tokensUpdated 3 days ago
    Auto-check passed
  • Hierarchical AGENTS.md Generator

    Yeachan-Heo/oh-my-claudecode

    Maps a codebase directory by directory and writes linked AGENTS.md files, each pointing to its parent, to document what each area contains.

    40k GitHub stars~2.3k tokensUpdated 3 days ago
    Auto-check passed

Questions about Minimal Prose Discipline

What does Minimal Prose Discipline do?

Keeps an agent's chat replies and reports short by cutting filler and narration while leaving code, commands, paths, errors and numbers untouched. This discipline applies when the agent is about to talk to you: chat replies, reports and session-close pointers. Anything it builds as an artifact, such as code, commit messages, documents or memory files, is out of scope.

When should I use Minimal Prose Discipline?

Minimal Prose Discipline fits situations like: you want tighter agent replies without losing exact commands or error text; writing a status report or end-of-session summary for a busy reader; cutting narration from the updates of a long-running task.

How do I install Minimal Prose Discipline in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add Yeachan-Heo/oh-my-claudecode --skill minimal-prose-discipline -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/minimal-prose-discipline in Yeachan-Heo/oh-my-claudecode) into .claude/skills/minimal-prose-discipline in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Minimal Prose Discipline in Codex?

Run `npx skills add Yeachan-Heo/oh-my-claudecode --skill minimal-prose-discipline -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/minimal-prose-discipline in Yeachan-Heo/oh-my-claudecode) into .agents/skills/minimal-prose-discipline in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Minimal Prose Discipline in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add Yeachan-Heo/oh-my-claudecode --skill minimal-prose-discipline -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/minimal-prose-discipline, .gemini/skills/minimal-prose-discipline, .github/skills/minimal-prose-discipline and .opencode/skills/minimal-prose-discipline in your project.

What does Minimal Prose Discipline need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Minimal Prose Discipline is instructions for the agent only.

Does Minimal Prose Discipline access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Minimal Prose Discipline safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Minimal Prose Discipline use?

Minimal Prose Discipline is published under the MIT licence (the repository's licence). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Minimal Prose Discipline use?

About 2.1k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 8.3k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full.

What are the alternatives to Minimal Prose Discipline?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Minimal Prose Discipline: Skill Review (QoderAI/better-harness, 2.4k stars), Conclusion-First Communication (Galaxy-Dawn/claude-scholar, 5.7k stars), Explanation Guidance (testdouble/han, 281 stars) and Stakeholder Summary (testdouble/han, 281 stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Minimal Prose Discipline?

Yeachan-Heo (a GitHub user) maintains it in Yeachan-Heo/oh-my-claudecode, which has 39,751 GitHub stars. The repository holds 47 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on October 8, 2026.

Source: Yeachan-Heo/oh-my-claudecode on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.