4 ms·

I asked Claude to do the following: > hello i would like to configure a new output style for you. it should keep the coding instructions (as you will still be

I asked Claude to do the following: > hello i would like to configure a new output style for you. it should keep the coding instructions (as you will still be coding!) and otherwise produce the same output, but with two new caveats. first, long detailed replies are still permitted, but if employed they must end in a bullet pointed summary whose points are all brief; if the summary attempt ends up not being so brief, produce subsequent summaries until the most recent summary attempt is digestible. second, if there is an open queue of actions for me to execute and you are about to end a turn to wait for a reply or this set of actions has not recently been mentioned, please tabulate the open actions i should take and why i should take them before ending the response. does this make sense or do you have any follow up questions And now every message contains the same stuff I don't bother reading, but followed by a nicely formatted bullet point summary of the response and a table of follow up actions for me to take that I do read.

jchook 1mo ago
Claude already does summaries at the end of long output but they often sound even more like terse jargon nonsense than the long form, eg “the hardwired seam and the relocated barrel”. Sometimes the summaries feel totally alien to the task or code.
- throwaway894345 1mo ago
  Yeah, or they will make some reference to “the seam” or “it” or something else that assumes you read and followed the prior 3 pages of output.
8cvor6j844qw_d6 1mo ago
A separate /clear and /code-comment-hygiene works much better than including instructions related to comment verbosity after carrying out a task. Claude somehow is unable to stop writing excessive comments when carrying out a task.
- striking 1mo ago
  I've added code comment hygiene to a skill that all of my pull requests go through, alongside a review from a separate agent and a settle loop against bots in my GitHub workspace (since output style has seemed to only help literally the output I see from the model). A maximum of 20% comment lines added to total lines added and pasting in https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20260812-00/?p=112607 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20260812-00/?p=11... has done wonders. Even as the most Ant-pilled guy out there, I will take a moment to note that Codex on 5.6 models needs none of this...
cnity 1mo ago
I've noticed that most people seem to consider the core problem of Claude's output as "too verbose" but I don't think this actually cuts to the heart of the matter at all. It's almost, in some weird way, the opposite: like the text is far too _dense_. It tries too hard to invent odd terminology to try to condense stuff, but it doesn't tell you up front that it is going to call your company wide error-handling mechanism a "flare" (or some other such strange term).
- throwaway894345 1mo ago
  Kind of both. On the one hand, it is “verbose” in the sense that it will tell me every little nit that it can think of while doing a task, it will tell me a narrative about its thought process, and it will tell me every other detail it can think of. But it does so in a way that tries to be incredibly dense to the point that I have to struggle to figure out what it is saying. I wonder if there are any “legibility benchmarks” that one could use to determine what prompts work best?
  - timacles 1mo ago
    There are no "best" prompts. Its a random BS generation machine that you can at times direct enough to get stuff done for you. The output will almost always have varying levels of BS that you have to clean up with various levels of effort.
    - throwaway894345 1mo ago
      "<Country> doesn't have a largest city because all of the cities in <Country> are small"
  - striking 1mo ago
    I quite like https://surgehq.ai/benchmarks/hemingway-bench https://surgehq.ai/benchmarks/hemingway-bench
    - fcarraldo 1mo ago
janee 1mo ago
thanks! I've been having quite a lot of success with your instruction today. Tried so many variants, best practises bla bla bla, but yeah this one seems be working quite nicely for me so far :)

jchook 1mo ago

Claude already does summaries at the end of long output but they often sound even more like terse jargon nonsense than the long form, eg “the hardwired seam and the relocated barrel”. Sometimes the summaries feel totally alien to the task or code.

throwaway894345 1mo ago
Yeah, or they will make some reference to “the seam” or “it” or something else that assumes you read and followed the prior 3 pages of output.

8cvor6j844qw_d6 1mo ago

A separate /clear and /code-comment-hygiene works much better than including instructions related to comment verbosity after carrying out a task. Claude somehow is unable to stop writing excessive comments when carrying out a task.

striking 1mo ago
I've added code comment hygiene to a skill that all of my pull requests go through, alongside a review from a separate agent and a settle loop against bots in my GitHub workspace (since output style has seemed to only help literally the output I see from the model). A maximum of 20% comment lines added to total lines added and pasting in https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20260812-00/?p=112607 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20260812-00/?p=11... has done wonders. Even as the most Ant-pilled guy out there, I will take a moment to note that Codex on 5.6 models needs none of this...

cnity 1mo ago

I've noticed that most people seem to consider the core problem of Claude's output as "too verbose" but I don't think this actually cuts to the heart of the matter at all. It's almost, in some weird way, the opposite: like the text is far too _dense_. It tries too hard to invent odd terminology to try to condense stuff, but it doesn't tell you up front that it is going to call your company wide error-handling mechanism a "flare" (or some other such strange term).

throwaway894345 1mo ago
Kind of both. On the one hand, it is “verbose” in the sense that it will tell me every little nit that it can think of while doing a task, it will tell me a narrative about its thought process, and it will tell me every other detail it can think of. But it does so in a way that tries to be incredibly dense to the point that I have to struggle to figure out what it is saying. I wonder if there are any “legibility benchmarks” that one could use to determine what prompts work best?
- timacles 1mo ago
  There are no "best" prompts. Its a random BS generation machine that you can at times direct enough to get stuff done for you. The output will almost always have varying levels of BS that you have to clean up with various levels of effort.
  - throwaway894345 1mo ago
    "<Country> doesn't have a largest city because all of the cities in <Country> are small"
- striking 1mo ago
  I quite like https://surgehq.ai/benchmarks/hemingway-bench https://surgehq.ai/benchmarks/hemingway-bench
  - fcarraldo 1mo ago

janee 1mo ago

thanks! I've been having quite a lot of success with your instruction today. Tried so many variants, best practises bla bla bla, but yeah this one seems be working quite nicely for me so far :)