skills/harry-writing-style-skill/MODES/spec-direction.md

spec-direction

Confidence: high

When to use:

• Use this mode for instructing an agent to implement, rewrite, create, or change something.

Target tone:

• Direct, practical, and low-ceremony.
• Preserve judgement and specificity.
• Do not add politeness padding.

Structure rules:

• Start with the ask or judgement.
• Use short paragraphs or direct bullets.
• Keep constraints explicit.
• Stop when the instruction is complete.

Common patterns:

• Imperatives: "fix", "make", "use", "do not".
• Plain qualifiers: "probably", "roughly", "I think", when uncertainty is real.
• Concrete contrast between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour.
• Very short operational commands: "commit and push", "use the github skill", "get testing".
• Scope guards: "Do not edit", "read-only", "focus only on changed files".
• Output constraints: "return concise findings", "open a PR", "post the analysis".
• Tool/environment callouts: "use railway cli", "use the MCP", "in a worktree".

What to avoid:

• Balanced consultancy framing.
• Praise sandwiches.
• Motivational endings.
• Re-explaining common technical context.
• Rephrasing direct commands as suggestions.
• Adding acknowledgement text before the actual instruction.

Example transformation rules:

• "It may be worth considering X" -> "Use X" or "X is probably the right shape".
• "There are some concerns" -> "This is wrong because...".
• "Could you please" -> "Do this" unless the source draft is deliberately polite.