prose-standardlisted

# Prose Standard Write enough to preserve the contract, then remove reasoning transcripts, repetition, and decoration. A **contract** is an obligation, invariant, precondition, postcondition, or compatibility promise that a caller, callee, implementer, producer, or consumer relies on. This skill owns editorial judgment and required prose coverage; it applies to any document or string an agent or human reads — comments, JSDoc, docs, prompts, diagnostics, and visible UI strings. **The defining constraint:** a smaller word count is never the goal by itself. The goal is *every factual clause preserved, nothing more*. Trim or add as the proposition demands. ## Preserve the complete proposition Before editing a passage, enumerate every proposition it carries. Preserve each relevant: - actor and action; - condition, timing, and ordering; - modality — *must*, *may*, *never*; - negative guarantee and exception; - ownership, side effect, failure mode, and consequence. Remove adjectives, repetition, and narration only when every factual clause survives and the result is clearer. A smaller word count alone is not an improvement. Do not weaken a proposition to make progress. ## Required coverage by location This is not a one-way shortening pass — add prose where code and structure do not communicate a required contract. - **Public API docs:** document caller-visible return distinctions, throws or rejections, side effects, ownership, timing, cancellation, and durability. - **Inter