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just-say-so

The rules manifest, your own bullets, and your own voice

The rules manifest

Section titled “The rules manifest”

rules/manifest.json is the one source for the rules. npm run build renders rules/full.md and rules/condensed.md from it and generates the JustSaySo style, and a test fails when any of the three drift. Each rule carries:

  • full, the text in the full rules, which a context start and a subagent start inject, and short, the text in the condensed reminder, which the prompt after a violation carries. A rule without short appears in the full text only. condensed at the top of the file lists the ids in reminder order.
  • vale, the Vale rules that check it. An empty list marks a judgment rule such as “lead with the answer” that no linter sees. The full text names them after each bullet, as “Checked by”.
  • style, on the four banned-term rules: the name, message, level, and terms of the generated Vale rule. The {terms} placeholder in the text renders that list, so the rules text and the style never disagree about what is banned.

What the vale field buys. Before every injection, the plugin runs vale ls-config for the reply target and adjusts the text, full or condensed, before injecting it. A bullet is left out when every installed Vale rule behind it is turned off; a rule from a style the project never installed does not count. Error-level rules in the project’s styles that no bullet names are added as one closing line, twelve at most, so the model at least sees their names. A project that sets JustSaySo.Intensifiers = NO and runs ai-tells.EmDashUsage at error gets a reminder without the intensifiers bullet and with the em-dash rule named at the end. When vale is missing the text goes out unadjusted.

Bullets for your own Vale rules

Section titled “Bullets for your own Vale rules”

A project that runs a style the shipped manifest does not describe, ai-tells say, gets those rules named at the end of the reminder and nothing more. /just-say-so:draft writes the missing bullets. It runs node src/cli/undescribed.js, which lists every enabled error-level rule for the reply target that no bullet names, with the rule’s message, description, link, and a few of the tokens it looks for. The model then groups those rules by theme and writes one bullet per theme, with a short text for the reminder, a full text, and the grouped ids in vale, and prints the result as a rules.extra fragment. It is a draft: save it, edit it, and point rules.extra at the file. From then on the reminder carries your sentences instead of the names. --all includes warning and suggestion rules. The doctor warns when a pasted bullet names a rule no installed style has.

Bring your own rules

Section titled “Bring your own rules”

You might hate my rules, fair enough. Two routes:

  • An extra file, .just-say-so-rules.json in the project root (or in a directory above it) with no setting, or any path rules.extra names, is a manifest fragment: a JSON file with sections of rules in the shape of rules/manifest.json. A bullet with a new id is appended under the fragment’s own section. A bullet with the id of a shipped one replaces it in place, text, short, and vale alike, and keeps its slot in the reminder while it has a short text. { "id": "<shipped id>", "drop": true } removes a shipped bullet from the full text and the reminder. The doctor reports the file in force with its added, replaced, and dropped counts, and warns about a drop that matches no id. Its rules with a short text join the reminder after the shipped ones. This is the place for a bullet about a rule your own Vale style enforces.
  • rules.manifest replaces the shipped manifest with your own. The generated style still ships the shipped terms; put your own terms in a Vale style of your own and set JustSaySo = NO in .vale.ini where you disagree.

All the hooks, commands, and config machinery stay the same.

Bring your own voice

Section titled “Bring your own voice”

When the checker warns or blocks, it speaks in shipped English sentences (the violation report, the rewrite instruction, the confirmation prompt). Those sentences live in rules/messages.json. To reword them, or to run the enforcement side in another language, copy that file, edit the sentences you want, and point rules.messagesPath at your copy. Sentences you leave out keep the shipped wording. The {target} placeholder is filled at runtime with the name of the file being checked.

The per-term hints (“use a concrete verb…”) and the rules text live in rules/manifest.json. A full translation edits both files.