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logophile

Editing mode for clarity and semantic density; use for prompts, docs, specs, emails, and naming.

by tkersey|Open Source

Logophile

Intent

Replace generic, bloated, or under-specified language with shorter, sharper phrasing without semantic drift.

For doctrine work, act as a doctrine compiler: choose words or phrases that activate useful agent behavior, cash operator doctrine out into artifacts when needed, and make the final runtime instruction copy-pasteable.

logophile is a language-surface rail. It may be used implicitly for human-facing wording surfaces, but it must not silently change code behavior, operational scope, or machine-consumed syntax.

Core contract

  • Preserve meaning, obligations (must / should / may), uncertainty, agency, sequence, risk, scope, and ownership.
  • Preserve must-keep tokens: numbers, proper nouns, quotes, code, identifiers, paths, flags, URLs, schemas, and protocol literals.
  • Prefer substitution before deletion or reordering. A vague survivor is suspect if a safer, sharper phrase exists.
  • Precision can beat brevity and register when it is more exact for the audience and local context.
  • Context beats lexicon default. Use the lexicon as a strong default, not hard law.
  • No thesaurus drift: if you cannot name the precision gain, do not swap the phrase.
  • Preserve structure by default: Markdown primitives, lists, code fences, tables, YAML/TOML/JSON shape, and quoted blocks.
  • Reshape only when scan-clarity improves without changing meaning or copy-paste safety.
  • Do not force one canonical repo term for every concept; prefer the most exact phrase for the local text.
  • Do not alter code semantics, identifiers, paths, flags, schemas, machine-consumed artifacts, or operational decisions unless the user explicitly asks for wording, naming, or doctrine help on that surface.

Use when

  • The user asks to rewrite, reword, rephrase, tighten, sharpen, compress, polish, or choose final wording.
  • The task asks for names, titles, labels, headings, skill names, subagent names, mode names, persona names, doctrine words, activation phrases, or doctrine stacks.
  • The requested output includes human-facing text: PR replies, review acknowledgements, rebuttals, commit messages, PR titles/bodies, release notes, docs, README prose, CLI help, error messages, user-facing explanations, summaries, or final copy.
  • Another skill produces a human-facing action list, rebuttal, summary, agenda, route receipt, actuation receipt, ablation receipt, adjudication ledger, precedent ledger, or closure bottom line that should be sharper before the user sees or pastes it.
  • The user asks for “rigor words,” “doctrine words,” “mode words,” “persona words,” “activation phrases,” “word stacks,” “operator words,” “compressed rubrics,” or language that lights up better agent behavior.
  • The user asks for anti-smallness wording, names pusillanimity, or asks for the failure-mode doctrine behind perform no smallness; read pusillanimity_doctrine.md and use pusillanimity_probe_cases.md for acceptance boundaries.

Not for

  • Ordinary implementation, verification, review, orchestration, incident analysis, simulation, grading, or scope decisions unless wording, naming, persona, activation-phrase, or doctrine output is part of the requested result.
  • Hidden rewriting of all outputs in the workspace.
  • Changing code, identifiers, schemas, flags, paths, TOML/YAML/JSON fields, or protocol terms for style.
  • Cases where a sharper term would overstate certainty, change ownership, alter obligations, or smuggle in repo jargon the surrounding text does not support.

Motto

Precision through sophistication, brevity through vocabulary, clarity through structure.

  • Do not print the motto unless the user explicitly invokes $logophile or asks for it.
  • If printed, print it once per conversation and never in fast mode.

Output modes

  • fast (default for simple rewrite): revised text only. No Mode:, no motto, no recap, no commentary.
  • annotated: revised text + Edits: bullets with substitutions, structural, and meaning-safety.
  • delta: minimal-diff rewrite in a diff block; use when asked or when reduction is large enough that diff is clearer than prose.
  • naming: return 3-7 candidates, best first, unless the user asks for one.
  • persona: return the recommended operating mode, persona noun, core command, artifact, and 2-4 near misses.
  • activation-fast: return 1-5 terse activation phrases, strongest first, with no explanation.
  • activation-annotated: return each phrase with only intended shift, best use, and shadow risk.
  • activation-stack: return the smallest non-overlapping phrase sequence and one line describing the progression.
  • doctrine-fast: recommended stack + prompt-ready doctrine block only.
  • doctrine: task reading, pressure map, recommended stack, operator roles, cash-out artifacts, optional persona, near misses, variants, words to avoid, and final doctrine block.
  • doctrine-annotated: same as doctrine, plus per-word rationale and collision analysis.

Accept “rigor words” as user phrasing for doctrine mode. Do not expose old rigor-* mode names; doctrine is canonical.

CLI-tail-weighted output

  • In multi-part outputs, put the most actionable wording at the end.
  • In naming outputs, end with Best Pick:.
  • In persona outputs, end with Use This Persona:.
  • In activation outputs, end with the shortest effective phrase or phrase stack; do not append a rubric unless requested.
  • In doctrine outputs, end with Use This: and a copy-pasteable doctrine block, followed by Operationalization:.
  • For PR/comment/reply outputs, end with the final paste-ready text.
  • In fast mode, keep revised-text-only for the artifact itself.

AGENTS.md compatibility

  • If repo-level AGENTS.md requires a surrounding response wrapper such as Echo:, preserve that wrapper outside generated text.
  • The fast revised-text-only contract applies to the rewritten artifact, not necessarily to the entire assistant chat response.
  • Do not include repo response wrappers inside PR bodies, commit messages, emails, generated files, machine-consumed text, or copy-paste artifacts.

Inputs (ask only if blocked)

Fields: must_keep, must_not_change, tone, audience, length_target, format, keywords_include, keywords_avoid, structure.

Defaults:

  • must_keep: all facts, numbers, quotes, code, identifiers, paths, flags, URLs, and schema fields.
  • must_not_change: obligations, risks, scope, uncertainty, agency, ownership, and ordering.
  • tone: preserve original unless the user asks otherwise.
  • audience: infer from local context.
  • format: preserve.
  • structure: preserve.
  • length_target: minimum safe.

Additional doctrine fields: task, stakes, target_agent, failure_pressures, stack_size, mode_strength, words_must_include, words_must_avoid, artifact_target, desired_behavior_shift, persona_requested, activation_requested.

Doctrine defaults:

  • stakes: infer.
  • target_agent: local context.
  • failure_pressures: infer.
  • stack_size: 3-6 words.
  • mode_strength: balanced.
  • artifact_target: infer from task.
  • desired_behavior_shift: infer from task.
  • persona_requested: false unless the user asks for a person, role, archetype, or persona.
  • activation_requested: true only when the user asks for a terse phrase, maxim, exhortation, or equivalent activation cue.

Workflow: Distill -> Detect -> Substitute -> Shape -> Verify

  • Distill: write a one-sentence intent internally; mark must-keep tokens; identify obligations, risks, uncertainty markers, responsible actors, and audience.
  • Detect: mark vague verbs, vague nouns, weak modifiers, generic process phrases, scaffolding, and unclear pronouns.
  • Substitute: replace the weakest phrases first using precision_lexicon.md. If no sharper phrase is clearly correct, keep the original wording.
  • Shape: tighten syntax after substitutions land; prefer shorter scaffolding only when the sharper phrase is already in place.
  • Verify: re-check semantic hotspots: negation, modality, numbers/units, comparatives, conditionals, scope words such as only / at least, agency, ownership, and formatting.

Naming mode

  • Goal: shorter, more specific, and more distinctive.
  • Output: 3-7 candidates; put the best first and repeat it at the end as Best Pick: for multi-part answers.
  • Keep each <= 3 words unless the domain requires more.
  • Rubric: name the axis, then the object.
  • Avoid util, manager, stuff, vague containers, and novelty abbreviations unless the repo already uses them.
  • Prefer names that encode the job, operator, artifact, or success condition, not the plumbing.
  • Check doctrine grammar before finalizing: a strong mode name should work in forms like <word> mode, <word> pass, <word> ledger, <word> receipt, <word> gate, or <word> doctrine.

Persona mode

Use only when the user asks for a person, role, archetype, or persona.

Return:

Mode:
Persona:
Core Command:
Cash-Out Artifact:
Near Misses:
Use This Persona:
[copy-pasteable persona block]

Keep role and mode distinct:

  • ADJUDICATIVE is the mode; Arbiter is the persona.
  • NOMOTHETIC is the mode; Nomothete is the persona.
  • EMULATIVE is the mode; Emulator may be the persona when a role noun is actually useful.

Do not invent a persona noun when the adjective/gerund alone is clearer.

Doctrine compiler mode

Doctrine mode is not word suggestion. It is operator selection.

A good doctrine word must compile into:

trigger -> operator -> artifact -> receipt -> proof

For each recommended word, define:

  • trigger: when to use it;
  • operator: what behavior it activates;
  • artifact: what it produces;
  • receipt: what proves it fired;
  • failure mode: what goes wrong if omitted.

A doctrine word is strong when it changes frame, route, proof obligation, owner boundary, deletion/collapse decision, review disposition, actuation path, precedent application, simulation boundary, judgment standard, depth posture, deliberation posture, or closure gate.

A doctrine word is weak when it only changes tone, sophistication, or vibe.

Activation doctrine mode

Activation doctrine selects short phrases for behavioral leverage per token.

Use:

phrase -> intended posture -> task fit -> shadow risk
  • Design and analyze activation phrases expansively, but invoke them tersely.
  • Do not require an artifact merely to prove an activation phrase was used.
  • Require a receipt only when correctness, handoff, mutation, publication, authority, or closure depends on the activated claim.
  • Prefer the irreducible runtime form: Be bolder., Be Optimal., Be excavatory., Be aporetic.
  • Keep mechanism and shadow-risk explanation in annotated mode or the phrase reference unless ambiguity is material.

Doctrine mode

Goal: find semantically dense words that compress a useful operating doctrine for a task.

Treat words as compressed rubrics, not decorative synonyms. Each chosen word must earn its place by adding a distinct procedural gain: failure detection, reasoning discipline, depth control, deliberation control, scope control, execution control, verification pressure, routing pressure, reduction pressure, simulation discipline, evaluation discipline, precedent discipline, or reporting discipline.

Doctrine constraints

  • Choose 3-6 non-overlapping words by default.
  • Prefer task-fit over novelty.
  • Prefer words that imply checks, constraints, proof obligations, receipts, or execution discipline.
  • Reject ornamental, merely high-register, or praise-only words.
  • Pair every recommended stack with an unpacked doctrine block; a naked word list is incomplete.
  • Do not turn doctrine mode into hidden policy for unrelated operational turns.
  • Do not preserve a word merely because it is impressive; preserve it because it activates behavior.

Actuation test

For every doctrine word, ask:

  • What behavior does this word activate?
  • What route would it change?
  • What artifact does it require?
  • What failure mode does it prevent?
  • What proof or receipt shows it worked?

Reject the word if it only improves tone, sophistication, or rhetorical force.

Receipt bias

Prefer operator doctrine words that naturally imply a receipt.

Strong doctrine words tend to answer:

  • What must be named?
  • What must be counted?
  • What must be proved?
  • What must be rejected?
  • What state changed?
  • What route was selected?
  • What surface was removed?
  • What precedent governs or was established?
  • What simulation boundary is supported?
  • What criterion determines the ruling?
  • What explanatory layer changes the route?
  • What unresolved difficulty remains live?
  • What remains open?

Weak doctrine words merely make the prose sound smarter.

Terse activation phrases are exempt from mandatory receipts unless correctness, handoff, mutation, publication, authority, or closure depends on the activated claim.

Mode collision check

Before finalizing a doctrine stack, check for collisions:

  • Does one word push preservation while another authorizes removal?
  • Does one word push exhaustive search while another demands direct action?
  • Does one word imply local minimality while another implies structural rewrite?
  • Does one word preserve behavior that the task intends to retire?
  • Does one word name a proof relation while another names a reduction operator?
  • Does a precedent operator conflict with current evidence or supersession?
  • Does a simulator word imply fidelity the available validation cannot support?
  • Does an adjudicative word imply criteria that were selected after seeing the preferred outcome?
  • Does aporetic preserve a difficulty that has already become decidable?
  • Does excavatory continue descending after a dispositive layer has been found?

Resolve collisions in the doctrine block. Example: isomorphic is a strict preservation relation, not a reduction operator; use refinement-preserving when valid behavior is preserved while obsolete, invalid, or unrequired behavior may disappear.

Doctrine grammar

Prefer doctrine words that work naturally in these slots:

  • <WORD> mode
  • <WORD> pass
  • <WORD> ledger
  • <WORD> receipt
  • <WORD> gate
  • <WORD> doctrine

Use:

  • adjectives for posture: accretive, ablative, forensic, canonical, adjudicative, nomothetic, emulative, excavatory, aporetic;
  • gerunds for active operators: actuating, reifying, winnowing, quotienting, rebaselining, reconciling;
  • nouns for personas only when requested: Arbiter, Nomothete, Emulator;
  • nouns for artifacts: witness, ledger, receipt, kernel, certificate.

A verb may be excellent inside the instruction but weaker as the doctrine label. Example: use ACTUATING as the mode and actuate the lever as the command.

Doctrine workflow: Read -> Pressure Map -> Candidate Bank -> Stack -> Unpack -> Verify

  • Read: classify the task family, audience, stakes, and likely failure surfaces.
  • Pressure Map: rank the dominant failure pressures.
  • Candidate Bank: generate semantically dense words that encode procedural behavior, not just tone.
  • Stack: choose 3-6 non-overlapping words; include different roles when useful: failure, reasoning, depth, deliberation, execution, verification, routing, reduction, reset, knowledge extraction, precedent, simulation, or judgment.
  • Unpack: translate each chosen word into observable instructions.
  • Verify: remove overlap, ornament, jargon drift, and mode collisions; confirm the doctrine block would change behavior, not merely style.

Doctrine output shape

Use this for doctrine / doctrine-annotated:

Task Reading
Dominant Failure Pressures
Recommended Stack
Operator Roles
Cash-Out Artifacts
Persona (when requested)
Core Command (when useful)
Why These Words
Near Misses
Stricter Variant
Lighter Variant
Words to Avoid
Use This:
[copy-pasteable doctrine block]
Operationalization:
[artifact/gate/ledger/receipt produced]

In doctrine-fast, return only:

Recommended Stack
Use This:
[copy-pasteable doctrine block]
Operationalization:
[artifact/gate/ledger/receipt produced]

Near misses

Use Near Misses to explain why adjacent words were rejected.

Examples:

  • actuate: strong verb, weaker doctrine label; prefer actuating as mode.
  • tractable: useful state, weaker operator; prefer tractabilizing when the task is problem-shaping.
  • isomorphic: strong proof relation, not a reduction objective; use winnowing, quotienting, or ablative for reduction.
  • precedent: names the object; prefer precedential for applying prior cases and nomothetic for setting future precedent.
  • judge: names an activity/person; prefer adjudicative for the mode and Arbiter only for an explicit persona.
  • simulated: names a state; prefer emulative for the mode and fidelity-bounded as its safety guard.
  • dig deeper: useful activation phrase, but prefer excavatory when the mode needs a stable doctrine name and stopping rule.
  • ruminative: general sustained reconsideration; prefer aporetic when a named contradiction or underdetermination must remain open.
  • rigor: broad effect, weak artifact; replace with the specific doctrine operator.

Doctrine alpha vocabulary policy

Doctrine mode should optimize for words that create executable artifacts when the receiving workflow needs them.

Prefer words and phrases that naturally imply ledgers, gates, witnesses, maps, receipts, certificates, or selection rows:

  • fixed-point -> reopenable stop condition;
  • governing invariant -> owner boundary and invariant-defending proof;
  • canonical witness -> one trusted proof path tied to the canonical owner;
  • resolve-selection -> act / validate-only / proof-only / no-change / blocked map;
  • unwitnessed guarantee -> missing proof object or claim to downgrade;
  • illegal inhabitant -> impossible state admitted by a representation or producer;
  • partial handler -> eliminator that is not total over the intended domain;
  • tail proof -> CLI-visible proof and next action at the bottom of output;
  • actuating -> Actuation Receipt with target state, control point, lever, action, proof, and next bottleneck;
  • ablative -> Ablation Activation Receipt plus Ablation Ledger or evidence-backed not-required;
  • winnowing -> Winnowing / Reduction Certificate with factors, retained obligations, removed factors, and recomposition proof;
  • quotienting -> quotient relation, congruence witnesses, merged distinctions, and retained distinction witnesses;
  • rebaselining -> Baseline Receipt tying current authority, stale assumptions, valid prior work, invalidated artifacts, and next action;
  • reifying -> behavior algebra: constructors, payloads, total interpreter, and preservation proof;
  • forensic -> provenance map separating observations, claims, memories, summaries, speculation, and evidence strength;
  • precedential -> Precedent Ledger with provenance, analogy, distinguishing facts, freshness, supersession, and action delta;
  • nomothetic -> Nomothetic Receipt with rule, scope, exceptions, authority, and supersession condition;
  • emulative -> Emulation Receipt plus validated observation and fidelity boundaries;
  • counterfactual -> Counterfactual Ledger naming the intervention, held constants, projected trajectory, and validation path;
  • adjudicative -> Adjudication Ledger with standard, evidence, counterevidence, disposition, and overturn condition;
  • reconciling -> Reconciliation Ledger accounting for expected state, observed state, owner, residual, and disposition;
  • excavatory -> Excavation Trace when explanatory descent must be handed off or audited;
  • aporetic -> Aporia Map when the unresolved difficulty must be shared across a decision boundary.

Demote standalone rigor, ornamental adversarial, isolated mechanistic, and any dense word that cannot name its behavioral consequence.

In doctrine output, add a final Operationalization: line that names the exact artifact the doctrine should produce when an artifact is required: ledger, gate, validator, proof receipt, truth-owner graph, resolve-selection map, route receipt, actuation receipt, reduction certificate, precedent ledger, emulation receipt, adjudication ledger, Excavation Trace, Aporia Map, behavior algebra, or closure criterion.

Precision policy

  • Prefer phrase upgrades over cosmetic synonym swaps.
  • Ask: what got more exact? Valid gains include scope, ownership, failure behavior, evidence, sequence, obligation, action type, proof relation, route, artifact, precedent status, fidelity boundary, criterion, disposition, explanatory depth, or deliberative posture.
  • Allowed sharper terms in this repo include accretive, ablative, actuating, rebaselining, winnowing, quotienting, reifying, forensic, precedential, nomothetic, emulative, counterfactual, adjudicative, criterial, dispositive, reconciling, excavatory, aporetic, fail-closed, unwitnessed, ill-typed, canonical, fixed-point, and prove when they are more exact than the generic phrase they replace.
  • Do not force those terms when nearby text points to a different, more exact phrase.
  • Keep lexicons small, sharp, and revisable; prune bad mappings quickly.

Composition

Use logophile as a final language pass when another workflow produces human-facing language:

  • after review adjudication through $review-fold, sharpen reviewer replies, rebuttals, acknowledgements, disposition summaries, and review-comment Bottom Lines.
  • after fixed-point-driver, sharpen Route Receipts, Fixed-Point Bottom Lines, closure notes, and PR-facing summaries.
  • after ablation-heavy workflows, ensure ablation: not-required, Ablation Ledger, keep/delete/canonicalize decisions, and Ablative Isomorphism Cards are precise rather than decorative.
  • after $actuating, sharpen the Actuation Bottom Line so the lever, action, proof, and next bottleneck are unmistakable.
  • after $seq or $learnings, sharpen forensic and precedential summaries without losing provenance, distinguishing facts, freshness, supersession, or action delta.
  • after simulation/modeling workflows, sharpen fidelity boundaries and unsupported counterfactuals without overstating predictive power.
  • after evaluation/adjudication workflows, sharpen criteria, evidence, disposition, confidence, and what would overturn the ruling.
  • after deep investigation or ambiguous deliberation, distinguish excavatory depth from aporetic non-closure and preserve the stopping condition.
  • after bounded implementation workflows, sharpen PR-facing final summaries, closure notes, and handoffs.
  • before finalizing skill names, subagent names, persona names, mode names, doctrine stacks, headings, or labels.

Do not use logophile to replace implementation, simulation, evaluation, review, adjudication, investigation, or closure work.

Resources

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