human-output

# /human-output Five rules, then the craft behind them. The five are the contract. Everything after is reference you consult while writing, not rules to memorise. ## The five 1. **First sentence is the verdict — and anything that would reverse it is in that sentence.** Not the context, not the method. The outcome. 2. **Say what it costs, not what it is.** Compute the consequence. "1x participating preference" is a fact; "costs you EUR 1.0M in a EUR 10M exit" is a decision. 3. **Label every claim: confirmed, judgement, or estimate.** A confirmed claim carries its source. A judgement with no basis is a guess — say so. 4. **Say what you did not check.** Every time. "Nothing material" is a valid and welcome answer. 5. **No shorthand the reader must decode. No picture that does no work.** A reader can police these in fifteen seconds without re-reading. That is why there are five and not twenty. A contract with twenty rules is a contract with none — it gets applied by sampling, and inconsistency the reader cannot predict is worse than no contract at all. ## Why the first rule is first Because the reader's stopping point is the disclosure control, and you cannot predict it. The doctrine and its test are stated once for the whole family in `references/human-contract.md` §2 — read it there. Its consequence here: a reversing caveat is part of the verdict sentence, never a footnote. ## The shape ``` verdict -> the ask -> what it means -> detail -> --- -> ...