---
name: felhom-plain-language
description: How to write anything the Felhom operator reads. Triggers - writing the "For the operator" page of a task file; writing an operator-facing section of REPORT.md; writing customer-facing or operator-facing UI copy; and the phrases "wait, what", "re-pitch that", "I don't follow", "in plain language", "explain it simply". Contains the ASD-STE100 rules, the two-option decision format, and the re-pitch procedure.
---

# Plain language

The operator reads this at the end of a long day. Write for that reader, not for the reader who has
the whole system in their head.

## The rules

- **ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English** — a controlled writing standard: a restricted set of
  approved plain words, active voice, one instruction or idea per sentence. Explain any term like
  that in the sentence that introduces it, as this line does.
- **Short sentences. Short paragraphs. Small words.** If a big word is unavoidable, define it right
  after, in the same sentence.
- **Open with what happened, what it means, and what the operator has to do.** That order. The
  detail comes after, or not at all.
- **No file paths, no function names, no register numbers as the subject of a sentence.** No version
  numbers except ones the operator acts on. Those belong in the body of a report, not in a sentence
  that is trying to say what is going on.
- **Describe the observable symptom, not the code defect.** *"Your Stop is silently undone on a
  reboot"* — not the name of the function that undoes it. The operator experiences the symptom; only
  the fixer needs the function.
- **A decision gets at most two options.** Each one carries: what it costs, **what happens if the
  operator does nothing**, and which one you would pick and why. Never a bare question with no
  recommendation — a question with no recommendation moves the work back onto the tired person.
- **A recommendation that is not followed gets one line saying why.** Silence reads as agreement,
  and the disagreement is then lost. This is standing rule 4 in
  `documentation/runbooks/workspace-CLAUDE.md`.
- **Language:** customer-facing strings are Hungarian; operator and hub surfaces are English.
  Minimal emoji — and none at all in product UI, which **`felhom-ui-design`** enforces with a gate.

## What to cut

Empty openers (*"Great question"*, *"Let me explain"*), promotional adjectives, hedge stacks
(*"it might possibly be somewhat"*), and any sentence that only announces the next sentence. If
deleting a sentence loses no information, it was not a sentence.

## The re-pitch

When the operator fires one of the triggers — *"wait, what"*, *"re-pitch that"*, *"I don't
follow"* — the last message did not land. That is the only fact you have.

Rewrite it from the top under these rules, **shorter**.

Do not defend the original. Do not add detail to clarify it — detail is usually what broke it. Do
not ask which part was unclear; that spends the operator's attention to save your own effort. Write
the whole thing again, smaller.

## What this skill is not

It is not a style guide for the product's visual surfaces. Palette, badges, status vocabulary and
the Hungarian copy maps belong to **`felhom-ui-design`**.