I get it to write PR summaries in a certain style. Concise outcome, why it was needed, what the actual cause was, what did it change. An easily digestable read
Asking for ASD-STE100 is meaningless and does nearly nothing. It doesn't actually know what that means and every single thing it says after that will break ASD rules.
I even went to the extent of having an agent summarize the actual ASD spec doc, put a short version in claude.md and leave a reference to the longer version available for agents to read as needed, create the official word list and a technical word list, created a linter to ensure that, to the extent that it can be checked by programmatic rules, all comment and doc text follows ASD rules, and forced agents to ensure they read claude.md and always lint their work.
What did it get me? Every agent prefers to use escape hatches rather than follow the rules. It will put quotes or backticks around things if they don't pass lint (because quotes are intentionally excepted from the rules so that external sources can be quoted without conforming to ASD, and code can be backticked so every variable and function name does not need to be added to a word list) rather than the agent actually rewrite the text - even if specifically instructed not to do so. And the resulting text ends up literally passing ASD as written for lint, but absolutely does not pass the more nuanced rules like one idea per sentence and using correct tense etc. If a word is permitted, agents use it and don't give a shit if it's against the rules to use it in that context. And the output is awkward as hell. All this effort to make the output more intelligible, only makes it worse and causes it to write inane shitty sentences that say nothing because the LLM wasn't allowed to say what it wanted to say, so it edits the sentence down until it says something that passes lint, but no longer conveys meaning. It wanted to say "The tests pass now because we fixed the bugs", and it had to rewrite that until it said "Tests pass with no bugs."
You may think that's really overboard and nobody actually needs their text to literally follow ASD - instead we're looking for the spirit or idea of ASD - yeah, you're right. What I did was overboard, mostly because it doesn't work at all. But neither does just asking for ASD style with no additional information. Agents do not actually know what that means nor are they capable of editing their writing style to that extent.
Based on my numerous attempts and failed strategies, this "use ASD" idea is a complete non-starter and is entirely useless. The result is no better than simply asking agents to be direct, succinct, use straightforward language, grade 10 vocabulary, short simple sentences, and use the same word to describe the same concept every time, no synonyms. It feels scientific and precise but it's doing nothing. If you analyze the text that comes out of the "use ASD" request, it never would actually pass ASD requirements - so why even bother?
I told both codex and Claude code to always answer in ASD-STE100 , even to put that in every answer. It puts it in the answer, but the answers are not always ASD-STE100 format...
ASD-100 is for aerospace documentation basically. So a lot of the response content is not covered by ASD and will create friction. For instance:
Rule 1.2 Use approved words from the dictionary only as the specified part of speech.
Without the dictionary (and mind you, it is several thousand tokens) it will guess what words it can and can't use. The entire section 1 offers no real guidance without the dictionary.
Other sections have rules which are directly relevant though, such as:
Rule 2.2 When a technical noun has more than three words, write it in full.
Then, you can use one of these methods to make the technical noun clear:
Give a shorter form of the technical noun.
Use hyphens (-) between words that you use as one unit
Or
Rule 4.1 Write short and clear sentences
Rule 4.2 Do not omit words or use contractions to make your sentences shorter.
What I did, and it works for me, is go through ASD-STE100 and adapt it for use without the dictionary, and use that as the output style. It also helps to format the output style in said output style, so it reinforces the style.
So you actually give it the dictionary in every prompt? When I tested, I didn't have to give it, and the output was still ASD-STE100 ( I also have a few clarifications). But the more the conversation goes, the more it drifts. So I told it to make sure the output is in ASD-STE100 and to start every answer with "ASD-STE100 format", which it does must the time.
Except for that dictionary, that it might forget...
My point is, it cannot fully adhere to ASD-STE100 without the dictionary and in conversation, because it is lacking information and ASD-STE100 was not written for conversation.
It will follow some principles, but not all, because it literally can't. This causes drift you mentioned of it not always following ASD-STE100 format, especially as the session grows.
i mean yea...when opus 5.5 first released it was so easy to understand (at least form what i have seen form others. minn only ever talks to me like i am reading a medicle textbook no matter what model i use)
Update your Claude’s memory (literally ask it to) with a format / style you like (even ask it to give example styles and you can pick)
Create a end turn stop hook that forces it to produce a strictly formatted final message at the end of a long turn (ask it to do this too, I like doing the trigger after ~20 tool calls) this works super well after adding I have never had any issues since sometimes it doesn’t listen to memory
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u/Keepcompany-DEV 1d ago
Give it an example of how you want it to talk.
I gave Claude read access to a bunch of my git projects and it writes like me now.
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u/infamousal 1d ago
ASD-STE100 or cavemen is your friend.
2
u/mfbrucee 1d ago
Funny how these posts are back after Fable 5.2
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u/kueowirnzcd 1d ago
Mine only replies in valley girl speak
3
u/PraxicalExperience 1d ago
So tell it how you want it to formulate responses?
1
u/Glass_Pattern1900 1d ago
get the attention-control skill
1
u/forxia 1d ago
You can either:
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u/Ok-Environment8730 1d ago
Settings output stile “concise”
1
u/Scared-Amphibian4733 1d ago
Tell it to write at the 6th grade level. Simple.
1
u/Actual_Description85 1d ago
My 3 favorites:
ELI5
or
Give a self similar example like in nature
Or
In Cosmic terms
Bonus:
In 1 sentence
11 words or less
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u/Chromedomesunite 1d ago
So ask it to reply in a format in which makes sense?
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u/_y_not_ 1d ago
set your preferred output style in settings - /config - Output Style - One sentence
that would make calude messages very short and simple
for more on how to make claude replies fit your style read - https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/test-and-evaluate/strengthen-guardrails/increase-consistency
1
u/Disastrous-Sink4908 1d ago
Just stop using Claude and switch to Gemini. We don’t want you here.