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Just this one line in AGENTS.md has given better results to reduce if not eliminate verbosity and grandeur. **Always use ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical Englis

Just this one line in AGENTS.md has given better results to reduce if not eliminate verbosity and grandeur. **Always use ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English Disclaimer: I saw this listed in some other HN post that I can' locate right away.

wpasc 1mo ago
idk who came up with it first, but ASD-STE100 has been floating around more since matt pocock put it in one of his skills
mattjoyce 1mo ago
This will produce quite verbose prose. STE100 is good for specs and explanations but it works best with a glossary or terms. will burn tokens.
- hartleybrody 1mo ago
  This has not been my experience at all. I have been using this skill[0] for several weeks and when I ask it to rewrite existing AI slop docstrings to use this convention they are nearly always 10-20% smaller, plus easier to read and mostly free from the traditional "tells" of AI writing. [0]: https://github.com/AminBlg/SimpleEnglish https://github.com/AminBlg/SimpleEnglish
statenjason 1mo ago
Agreed. ASD-STE100 makes automated code reviews tolerable.
bityard 1mo ago
Do you give the model access to the ASD-STE100 spec for reference/review or are you just assuming that enough of it is baked into the model for it to mostly adhere to it?
sha-3 1mo ago
If we alter the way LLMs talk, will it noticeably affect the quality of code it produces?
hartleybrody 1mo ago
This is probably the skill you remembered: https://github.com/AminBlg/SimpleEnglish https://github.com/AminBlg/SimpleEnglish I have been using it for a few weeks, and it significantly improves the quality of the docstrings and code comments, as well as the readability of spec docs. I have also added a few key bullet points to my AGENTS.md and have found the results to be very effective and generating plans and code that looks like something I would have written: ----------- ## planning, design and spec docs - the highest design goal is simplicity -- in our systems and our mental model -- even if if means edge cases are unaddressed and could potentially fail - please practice "ya ain't gunna need it" (YAGNI) do not add unnecessary guardrails - do not plan to add caching, many layers of unnecessary abstraction or other premature optimizations - look for places where adding or clarifying an invariant would simplify the code or the overall system please specifically try to avoid: - redundant calculations or duplicated work - duplicated conditionals or state-machine logic - storing state that can be derived from other state, which could drift and become out of sync over time - leaky abstractions across layers of the application - multi-line comments explaining a variable name or a single statement. well chosen names and design should makes these unnecessary, as the code is self-documenting

wpasc 1mo ago

idk who came up with it first, but ASD-STE100 has been floating around more since matt pocock put it in one of his skills

mattjoyce 1mo ago

This will produce quite verbose prose. STE100 is good for specs and explanations but it works best with a glossary or terms. will burn tokens.

hartleybrody 1mo ago
This has not been my experience at all. I have been using this skill[0] for several weeks and when I ask it to rewrite existing AI slop docstrings to use this convention they are nearly always 10-20% smaller, plus easier to read and mostly free from the traditional "tells" of AI writing. [0]: https://github.com/AminBlg/SimpleEnglish https://github.com/AminBlg/SimpleEnglish

statenjason 1mo ago

Agreed. ASD-STE100 makes automated code reviews tolerable.

bityard 1mo ago

Do you give the model access to the ASD-STE100 spec for reference/review or are you just assuming that enough of it is baked into the model for it to mostly adhere to it?

sha-3 1mo ago

If we alter the way LLMs talk, will it noticeably affect the quality of code it produces?

hartleybrody 1mo ago

This is probably the skill you remembered: https://github.com/AminBlg/SimpleEnglish https://github.com/AminBlg/SimpleEnglish I have been using it for a few weeks, and it significantly improves the quality of the docstrings and code comments, as well as the readability of spec docs. I have also added a few key bullet points to my AGENTS.md and have found the results to be very effective and generating plans and code that looks like something I would have written: ----------- ## planning, design and spec docs - the highest design goal is simplicity -- in our systems and our mental model -- even if if means edge cases are unaddressed and could potentially fail - please practice "ya ain't gunna need it" (YAGNI) do not add unnecessary guardrails - do not plan to add caching, many layers of unnecessary abstraction or other premature optimizations - look for places where adding or clarifying an invariant would simplify the code or the overall system please specifically try to avoid: - redundant calculations or duplicated work - duplicated conditionals or state-machine logic - storing state that can be derived from other state, which could drift and become out of sync over time - leaky abstractions across layers of the application - multi-line comments explaining a variable name or a single statement. well chosen names and design should makes these unnecessary, as the code is self-documenting