Key principle: Output should be scannable in under 5 seconds. Choose the simplest pattern that communicates the information effectively. </objective>
<quick_start> Select pattern based on data type:
| Data Type | Pattern | Use When |
|---|---|---|
| Machine-readable | TOON block | Returning data to subagents |
| Listings | Markdown table | Human comparisons, listings |
| Action result | Status line | Single operation outcome |
| Validation | Box report | Multi-check with pass/fail |
| Counts | Summary line | Aggregates, distributions |
Default to the simplest pattern. Escalate complexity only when needed. </quick_start>
<patterns> <toon_pattern> For structured data returned to subagents or machine processing:@type: [SchemaType]
@id: [unique-identifier]
[scalar properties]
[table]{columns|tab}:
[row1 tab-separated]
[row2 tab-separated]
Rules:
- •ALWAYS include
@typeand@id - •Use tab-separated tables for arrays
- •Prefer flat structure (avoid nesting >2 levels)
- •No prose - data only
- •Use
toonlanguage tag for syntax highlighting
Example:
@type: AssessAction @id: 005-auth actionStatus: CompletedActionStatus validationStatus: VALID checksPerformed: 10 issues.critical: 0 issues.warning: 1
</toon_pattern>
<table_pattern> For human-readable listings and comparisons:
| Column1 | Column2 | Column3 | |---------|---------|---------| | value1 | value2 | value3 |
Rules:
- •Maximum 6 columns (truncate or split if more)
- •Align columns consistently
- •Truncate cells >30 chars with
... - •Right-align numbers
- •Keep header row concise
Example:
| ID | Name | Stage | Priority | |------------|----------------|-------------|----------| | 005-auth | Implement Auth | in-progress | P1 | | 006-mgmt | User Management| ready | P2 |
</table_pattern>
<status_pattern> For single action outcomes:
[symbol] [action verb] [target]: [brief result]
Symbols:
- •
✓success - •
✗failure - •
⚠warning - •
→transition
Examples:
✓ Created outcome 005-auth in queued/ ✓ Synced capabilities-info.toon (12 capabilities) ✗ Validation failed: 3 critical issues ⚠ Index stale, auto-syncing...
For short lists (<5 items), use indented bullets:
✓ Created 3 outcomes - 005-auth (queued) - 006-mgmt (queued) - 007-report (queued)
</status_pattern>
<box_pattern> For validation reports and multi-section results:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Title] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Section1: [✓/✗] [details] Section2: [✓/✗] [details] Section3: [✓/✗] [details] Overall: [PASS ✓ / FAIL ✗ / NEEDS_ATTENTION ⚠] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Use box drawing characters:
- •
━horizontal line - •
│vertical line (if needed) - •
┌┐└┘corners (if needed)
Reserve for:
- •Validation reports (>3 checks)
- •Multi-section summaries
- •Error reports with details </box_pattern>
<summary_pattern> For counts, distributions, and quick stats:
Single line for simple counts:
Summary: 11 total | 3 queued | 2 ready | 1 in-progress | 5 completed
Two lines for distributions:
Summary: 11 total | 3 queued | 2 ready | 1 in-progress | 5 completed
9 parent | 2 child | P1: 6 | P2: 4 | P3: 1
Rules:
- •Use
|as separator - •Align related groups
- •Maximum two lines </summary_pattern>
<distribution_pattern> For visual distribution of values:
Maturity Distribution: 0-29%: ### (3) 30-59%: ##### (5) 60-79%: ### (3) 80-100%: # (1)
Rules:
- •Use
#for bar chart - •Include count in parentheses
- •Align labels and bars </distribution_pattern> </patterns>
<pattern_selection> Choose pattern based on:
- •Audience: Subagent (TOON) vs Human (table/status/box)
- •Complexity: Simple (status) → Complex (box)
- •Data shape: List (table) vs Result (status) vs Validation (box)
Decision tree:
Is output for another agent?
├─ Yes → TOON block
└─ No → Is it a single action result?
├─ Yes → Status line
└─ No → Is it validation with pass/fail?
├─ Yes → Box report
└─ No → Is it a list/comparison?
├─ Yes → Markdown table
└─ No → Summary line
</pattern_selection>
<symbols> Standard symbols for consistent output:| Symbol | Meaning | Unicode | Usage |
|---|---|---|---|
| ✓ | Success/pass | U+2713 | Completed actions, passing checks |
| ✗ | Failure/fail | U+2717 | Failed actions, failing checks |
| ⚠ | Warning | U+26A0 | Needs attention, non-critical |
| → | Transition | U+2192 | State changes, version bumps |
| • | Bullet | U+2022 | List items |
| ━ | Horizontal | U+2501 | Box borders |
| │ | Vertical | U+2502 | Box borders |
DO NOT use emoji. Stick to these standard symbols. </symbols>
<anti_patterns> Avoid these common mistakes:
- •Excessive whitespace: Don't add blank lines between every element
- •Nested boxes: Don't put boxes inside boxes
- •Mixed styles: Don't combine table + box in same output
- •Emoji overuse: Stick to standard symbols (✓✗⚠)
- •Long prose: Output should be data-focused, not explanatory
- •Missing language tags: Always tag code blocks (
toon,markdown) - •Inconsistent alignment: Align columns and values consistently
- •Over-engineering: Don't use box for simple status
- •Column overflow: Keep tables under 6 columns </anti_patterns>
<success_criteria> Output meets quality standards when:
- •Pattern matches data type (use decision tree)
- •Symbols used consistently throughout
- •No excessive whitespace or blank lines
- •Code blocks have language tags
- •Tables stay under 6 columns
- •Box reports used only for complex validation
- •TOON used for machine-readable returns
- •Human output is scannable in <5 seconds
- •No mixed patterns in single output </success_criteria>
Summary: 11 total | 3 queued | 2 ready | 1 in-progress | 0 blocked | 5 completed
Current Focus: 005-implement-auth (in-progress)
| ID | Name | Stage | Priority | Capabilities |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 005-implement-auth | Implement Auth | in-progress | P1 | auth-system:30% |
| 006-user-mgmt | User Management | ready | P2 | user-mgmt:25% |
| 007-reporting | Reporting | queued | P3 | reporting:20% |
Blocked: None </example>
<example name="action_result"> ws Plugin Published4745a58 feat(ws): add out/list command 0.9.2 → 0.9.3 (minor)
✓ Committed, pushed, synced </example>
<example name="validation_report"> ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Validation Report: 005-auth ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Schema: ✓ Valid YAML frontmatter Achievement: ✓ Behavioral focus Effects: ✓ 3 Given-When-Then Capabilities: ✓ Links valid Actors: ⚠ 1 unknown actor ID
Overall: NEEDS_ATTENTION ⚠ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ </example>
<example name="toon_return"> ```toon @type: ItemList @id: outcome-list-result numberOfItems: 11summary.total: 11 summary.queued: 3 summary.completed: 5
outcome{id,name,stage|tab}: 005-auth Implement Auth in-progress 006-mgmt User Management ready
</example> </examples>