← Patterns / practice
Write for three readers
The person editing it, the agent loading it tomorrow, and the stranger who lands on it cold.
- Authors
- Michael Staton
- Augmented with
- Claude Code on Claude Opus 5.5
- Tags
- Writing · Audience
What it is
Every doc in
context-v/
has three audiences: its author, a future agent session with no memory of today, and an outside reader arriving from a link.
Why
The agent and the stranger have the same problem: no context. A doc that serves the stranger serves the agent.
How
-
Lead with why, in a first paragraph an outsider can follow. Technical depth comes later.
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Name things plainly. Internal shorthand is the first thing both readers trip on.
-
Prefer genericizing a sensitive specific over hiding a whole doc. Keep
publish: falsefor what genuinely can't be shared.