This is cruft [1]. No one who is capable of using this needs it--it's a line in the prompt at most.

[1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/thinking-quickly-dave-constru...

I took one of the examples ("Leveraging sqlpipe's robust...") and just prefixed it with this:

> Rewrite this using ASD-STE100 simplified technical English:

And you get a good-enough result, it seems? Maybe add another sentence or two for guidance, but what's with needing these giant skills, when ASD-STE100 was surely in the training material?

On a related note I wrote a skill to apply the economist style guide to LLM generated writing https://github.com/TAJD/economist-style-guide-plugin

Tends to produce relatively well structured prose that’s easy to edit.

I have a question about how did the project evaluate the technical English performance compared to other skills/MCPs and with LLM w/o skills? In the Github repo, there is a summary of "measured: 6 Claude models × 8 tasks × 2 conditions, 96 runs", Does it means the percentage of violations in the words? If that's the case, the measurement might be a little bit strange weather the STE measure is already in the prompt? STE violations per 100 words ▼ 72.9% (every model won). The bench or evaluation should not be in the same prompt, like eval/test.

STE Misapplication issues and limited adoption

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Technical_English#M...

Seems to be doing too much, a 1 line in the system prompt is all you need. And it works well enough.

“Output tokens are precious, be succinct in your responses. Use ASD-STE100 simplified technical english”

One question I have about stuff like this: How does it affect the models intelligence or thinking ability. If this modifies the output or chain of thought in any way, it may impact what the model is capable of right? Especially if it's not trained to use this kind of language during training.

I like the idea, but not sold on the skill.

But did lead to me finding https://vale.sh and its various available linters. Might give that a try.

It’s ironic that the README has all the tells of being LLM-written: > 53 numbered rules, 9 sections, written in 1983 by people whose readers die when a sentence is ambiguous. The ones doing the heavy lifting: …

Not really a promising tell for a writing skill, IMO.

Does anyone know why ASD-STE100 is having a moment right now? Viral tweet?

I heard about it from a friend, and posted its "spec" here a few days ago:

https://asd-web-be-prod.azurewebsites.net/media/wunhmi5y/asd...

Ironically?, you're not allowed to copy from the pdf (yes, trivially defeatable - but why).

I guess we'd need a linter (ruff, but for English) that gates whether you're using any non-ASD-STE100 word? Otherwise, yeah, any agent will almost certainly forget this (one line) instruction.

I didn't know this even existed. Thanks for sharing.

Gotta love how the very first example in Issue 9 of the standard is already self-defeating:

> "Test" is an approved noun, but not an approved verb.

> STE: Test B is an alternative to test A.

So much for clear - unless you know the STE specific rule, the sentence is unambiguously ambiguous.

Direct access btw since the official site gates downloads with a Google form: https://www.asd-ste100.org/assets/files/ASD-STE100_ISSUE9.pd...

I has quite a lot of luck making docs nicer by asking to "write using the dry/succinct style of ukgov/gds".

If you want to take things further you can use linters to enforce the whatever style you want, but just naming it is a good start.

the problem I’ve found with these things is that models drift immediately. if it’s not a git commit hook that runs over docs and comments and commit messages objectively it’s probably useless. which I might try.

Claude is so friggin wordy and has no idea how place comments iff they actually matter.

https://youtu.be/uJblcC4lKYw

This video benchmarks slop-style indicators with different skill/prompt solutions including the STE skill vs. George Orwell's six rules of writing prompt: Orwell came out on top overall.

Additional bonus: it doesn't add much more tokens to input context. I have compared prose prompts with these rules and without and I am liking the results.

  1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
  2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
  3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
  4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
  5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
  6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

No semicolons — write two sentences.

Oh lord.

["Skill", "Force"]

Pick one.

Cruft complaints aside, what are people actually doing about this? Claude's prose output is becoming incomprehensible as its coding skill increases, and the concepts it needs to express are becoming more complex as it can handle more complex tasks.

Okay here's one of the outputs:

> Before you start, make sure that your AWS credentials are correct. If they are not, S3 rejects the upload with a permission error.

Wouldn't it be better to write:

Before start, ensure AWS credentials are correct. Otherwise, S3 rejects uploads with permission error.

TIL There's a spec for how I normally communicate instructions at work.

The irony of vibing a de-sloppinator

Anyone tried this as an output style and not just as a skill?

What a wonderful skill. I hate the long and verbose do strings or docs LLMs spit out. This will make a great addition to my docu agent.

And I agree, maybe I should use this for my emails too

Nothing is more comical than AI Slope declaring that I kill AI slop:

> your AI writes like a LinkedIn post. make it write like a Boeing manual.

> An agent skill that forces LLMs to write docs in ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English: the controlled language aerospace has used since 1983 so a tired mechanic cannot misread an instruction. AI slop dies as a side effect.

Also from a nicely explained YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJblcC4lKYw " The cure for AI slop is a 1986 aircraft manual"

https://github.com/woosal1337/blog/tree/main/videos/ep01-the...

Man, I was just now imploring Claude to be more concise.

Didnt use it on the readme for the repo

I wish this were selectable as the default output style.

I don't understand the challenges involved super well but I feel like this might be better as a piece of actual code (like a linter) that you can run to have an LLM iteratively de-slop its own writing, rather than forcing it out of distribution and having to contend with all the unreliability that entails.

The very first sections of the README having obvious claude-isms is not very reassuring:

> AI slop dies as a side effect

> One folder, no dependencies, MIT.

Honestly I should use this on my own emails and slack messages.

The day I have to negotiate and persuade the machine to stop talking shit rather than command it is the day I decide fuck it and go and farm geese or something.

Smells like today. I’ll take goose shit over this.

Oh, is ASD-STE100 this week’s mindless productivity/AI-bro trend?

Ads-STE100: Simplified Technical English - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49101215

ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English for LLMs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49065956

ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49075687

Show HN: Claude Skill for ASD-STE100 – Simplified English - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49108318

You don't need any of this slop. Just add this to your AGENTS.md file, jesus christ.

"When writing plans or documentation use:

ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English (STE for short)"

nice :-) i'll try that! thx