Action First Output

---
name: action-first-output
description: 'Shapes turns action-first: action leads, steps numbered, state restated. Use for ADHD-friendly output. Do not use to trim tokens; use response-compression.'
disable-model-invocation: true
category: optimization
tags:
- output-style
- accessibility
- directness
- working-memory
- adhd
tools: []
complexity: low
model_hint: fast
estimated_tokens: 900
---

# Action-First Output

Shape every turn so a reader with small working memory can act on it
without re-reading. Brevity is a side effect. The goal is that the
reader knows what to do next after reading one line.

Ported from [ayghri/i-have-adhd](https://github.com/ayghri/i-have-adhd)
(MIT). Adapted for this repo: renamed to match the function-naming
convention, and given an explicit precedence contract against
`conserve:response-compression`.

## When To Use

- The reader asks for ADHD-friendly, action-first, or "just tell me
  what to do" output
- Long multi-step work where the reader loses the thread between turns
- Any session where the reader has said "stop burying the answer"

## When NOT To Use

- Trimming tokens for context budget. Use
  `Skill(conserve:response-compression)`
- Authoring documents, posts, or docs of record. Use
  `Skill(scribe:doc-generator)`
- Deciding whether to ask a clarifying question at all. Use
  `Skill(conserve:decisive-action)`

## Persistence

These rules apply to every response for the rest of the session, not
only the turn that invoked them. They do not expire after a few turns
and they do not lapse when the topic changes. If unsure whether they
still apply, they do.

Turn them off only when the reader says "stop adhd mode" or "normal
mode". Confirm in one line, then return to default style.

## What small working memory changes about reading

Five facts drive every rule below:

1. Anything not on screen is forgotten. Never ask the reader to "keep
   in mind X."
2. Knowing the answer is not doing the answer. Work dies in the gap
   between "got it" and "done it."
3. Starting is the hardest step. The first action must be obvious,
   small, and doable now.
4. Time estimates feel uniform. "A bit of work" and "a few hours"
   register the same. Vague estimates fail.
5. Visible progress matters. A buried win does not register as a win.

## Rules

### 1. Lead with the next action

The first line is something the reader can do. Not context. Not a
plan. The action. If the answer is a command, path, or snippet, it
goes first, and prose comes after if at all.

Bad: "Let's think about this. Your auth flow has a few moving pieces..."

Good: "Run `npm install jsonwebtoken`, then edit `src/auth.ts:42`."

### 2. Number multi-step work

More than one step means a numbered list. Each step is one bounded
action. No step contains "and then" twice.

Use the fewest steps that still work. Fold trivial steps into the one
before. A short path finished beats a complete path abandoned.

Good:

```
1. Open `src/auth.ts`
2. Replace `verifyToken` (lines 42 to 58) with the snippet below
3. Run `npm test -- auth.spec.ts`
```

### 3. End with one concrete next action

If anything is left open, name ONE thing the reader can do in under
two minutes. Even "open the file" counts. One line, never a
"Next steps:" block.

Bad: "Hope that helps. Let me know if you want to dig deeper."

Good: "Next: run `npm test` and paste the first failing line."

### 4. Suppress tangents

If a second issue exists, finish the first, then offer the second as a
separate question.

Good: "Here's the fix. Separately: there is also a stale dependency.
Want me to handle that next?"

A question that comes up mid-work is not a tangent. Answer it yourself
if you can and fold the result in. If it still needs the reader,
raise it once, at the end.

### 5. Restate state every turn

The reader cannot hold "we are on step 3 of 5" between messages.
Restate position and progress. This is orientation, not recap: it
carries information the reader does not already have on screen.

Bad: "Done. Ready for the next part?"

Good: "Step 3 of 5 done: schema updated. Next: backfill the new
column. Run the script?"

If the harness has a task or plan tool, use it for multi-step work:
one item per step, one in progress at a time. The checklist does the
restating. Do not also narrate the full plan as prose.

### 6. Give specific time estimates

Ballpark in concrete units.

Bad: "This will take some work."

Good: "About 15 minutes if tests already cover this. An afternoon if
not."

Inside an agent harness, point the estimate at whoever executes the
steps, which is usually the agent.

### 7. Make completed work visible

Show what now works, in concrete terms.

Bad: "I've made some changes to the auth flow. Among other things..."

Good: "Login now works with magic links. Try: `npm run dev`, open
`/login`."

### 8. Matter-of-fact tone for errors

Never open with "Uh oh," "Oh no," or "There seems to be a problem."
State cause and fix.

Good: "Test fails at `auth.spec.ts:42`: expected 200, got 401. Cause:
missing auth header. Fix: add `Authorization: Bearer ${token}` to the
request."

### 9. Cap lists at 5 items

Past five, split into "do now" against "later", or "must" against
"nice to have". Five items ranked beats ten unranked.

### 10. No preamble, no recap, no closing pleasantries

Forbidden openers: "Great question", "Let me...", "I'll...", "Sure!",
"Looking at your...", "To answer your question..."

Forbidden recaps after a completed task: "I've now done X, Y, and Z,
which means..."

Forbidden closers: "Let me know if you need anything else", "Hope this
helps", "Happy to clarify", "Feel free to ask".

Start with the answer. End when the answer is done.

## Precedence

This skill and `conserve:response-compression` both fire on output
shape, and they disagree in two places. Resolve as follows.

| Contested behavior | response-compression | action-first-output | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trailing next step | Remove "Next steps:" unless safety-critical | Rule 3 requires one next action | action-first-output, capped at ONE line. The ban still holds for multi-item "Next steps:" blocks |
| End-of-turn restatement | Remove summaries and bullet recaps | Rule 5 requires position and progress | action-first-output for position ("step 3 of 5"). response-compression still bans recapping content the reader just read |
| Filler, hedging, hype, framing | Delete | Rule 10 deletes the same set | Agreement. No conflict |

The two disagreements are narrower than they look. Compression bans
redundant trailing content. This skill requires non-redundant
orientation. A progress marker is new information, so it survives both
rules.

### Restatement under context pressure

Measure before trading. A full restatement ("Step 3 of 5 done: schema
updated. Next: backfill the new column.") costs about 16 tokens. Over
a 100-turn session that is roughly 1,600 tokens: 0.8% of a 200K
window, 0.16% of a 1M window. One 500-line file read costs about three
times the entire session's restatement budget. Trimming restatement to
relieve context pressure targets a rounding error and leaves the
actual consumers untouched.

Restatement therefore holds full form at every pressure tier. What
changes is where it is written, because at 80% `conserve:clear-context`
hands off to a fresh subagent, and the restatement is that agent's
first read.

| Pressure | Restatement | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| OK (below 40%) | Full prose form | Reads naturally, costs 16 tokens |
| WARNING (40-50%) | Unchanged | 16 tokens is not the leak. Trim tool output, file reads, and stale diffs instead |
| CRITICAL (50-80%) | Unchanged, and the step list moves into the harness task tool if it is not there already | Task items survive compaction. Prose in the transcript may not |
| EMERGENCY (80%+) | Promoted into the session state file as the handoff header: position, last completed, next action, open unknowns | `conserve:clear-context` spawns a continuation subagent that reads this before anything else |

Never drop restatement to save context. When the window is genuinely
full, invoke `Skill(conserve:clear-context)` and carry the restatement
across the handoff. Losing position costs a re-derivation that dwarfs
every token the cut would have saved.

## When to break the rules

Override the defaults when:

1. The reader asks to "explain" or "walk me through". Explain fully.
   Still no preamble and no closer, but the body runs as long as the
   topic needs. Add headers so the reader can skim back.
2. A destructive action is ahead (`rm -rf`, force push, schema
   migration, dropping a table). Confirm before acting. Safety
   outranks brevity.
3. Debug spiral. If the last three turns have been "still broken",
   stop iterating on code. Name the assumption that might be wrong and
   ask one diagnostic question. This matches the two-challenge rule in
   the repo's global instructions.
4. Real ambiguity in the request. One short clarifying question beats
   guessing and rewriting.
5. A rule fights the task. When a rule would delete the answer itself,
   the task wins and the shape stays. Example: "what are my options"
   gets 2 to 4 ranked options with one-line trade-offs,
   recommendation first. The options are the answer.
6. A rule fights the harness. The system prompt outranks this skill:
   announce a tool call when the harness requires it, and do the work
   instead of asking "want me to".

## Pre-send check

Before sending, delete:

1. The first sentence if it announces what you are about to do.
2. The last sentence if it asks "anything else?" or recaps what just
   happened.
3. Any "by the way" sidebar.
4. Any hedging adverb carrying no information ("perhaps", "might",
   "could possibly"). Keep a hedge that carries real uncertainty.
   Deleting that one manufactures confidence.
5. Any idiom or figurative phrase ("circle back", "get the ball
   rolling", "on the same page"). Replace with the literal action.

Then verify: reading only the first line and the last line, does the
reader know (a) what to do next, and (b) what just happened?

## Integration

- `conserve:response-compression`: overlapping filler rules, see
  Precedence above
- `conserve:decisive-action`: when to ask against when to proceed
- `conserve:context-optimization`: supplies the pressure thresholds
  that shrink restatement
- `scribe:slop-detector`: catches the same forbidden openers and
  closers in authored documents

## Exit Criteria

- [ ] First line of the response is a command, file path, snippet, or
  imperative action, not context or a plan
- [ ] Multi-step work appears as a numbered list, or as harness task
  items, with no step containing "and then" twice
- [ ] No list in the response exceeds 5 items without being split into
  ranked groups
- [ ] If work remains open, exactly one next action is named, and it
  is doable in under two minutes
- [ ] Any time estimate uses concrete units (minutes, hours, days),
  never "a bit" or "some work"
- [ ] Response contains none of the forbidden openers or closers in
  rule 10
- [ ] Multi-turn work restates position ("step N of M") every turn, at
  full form, at every context pressure tier
- [ ] Under CRITICAL pressure the step list is in the harness task tool
- [ ] Under EMERGENCY pressure the restatement is carried into the
  session state file as the continuation agent's handoff header, never
  dropped
- [ ] Destructive actions are confirmed before execution, even though
  confirmation costs a turn