Command Explorer › scale:
Directive Shorthand 3.2 · Domain · MEASURE
scale: — the reply's measure
Six directives — points on one effort × length plane. Two are Level 1 (brief, deep); the crossover pair (executive, wordy) is Level 2; 3.2 added the measured middle: broad (coverage) and compact (packed).
The scale: directives
scale:brief — The short version: verdict first, essentials only.scale:deep — The full version: thorough treatment, evidence in view.scale:executive — Bottom line first, decision-ready, as short as the substance allows — the depth is in the work, not the word count.scale:wordy — The long version, fully aired out — expansive on what's known, with the effort capped: no deep dive, no rabbit holes.scale:broad — The broad version: wide coverage over depth — everything touched, nothing exhausted.scale:compact — Short with the substance kept: real work done and packed tight — on the road toward executive, less extreme.What this domain governs
How much work goes into the reply and how many words come out. The classic diagonal (brief ↔ deep) is what prose already asks for well; the crossover (executive ↔ wordy) — deep work in few words, everything aired out with no new digging — is what the shorthand exists for. Scale never persists anything.
Every token in this domain completes the same silent instruction — set how much reply … — written in the specification, never typed by the user. The prefix names the thing the phrase governs; the name after the colon qualifies it.
Select a point — hover, tap, or tab to it — to see its exact coordinates and how each score is derived.
The domain's rules
- One grid, named points: a reply sits at one point at a time, and where two scale directives appear, the last one wins. executive is a composed preset — full-depth work compressed to a short surface — so it doesn't stack with brief or deep. The four corners migrated from re: in 3.0; the old addresses (re:brief and friends) are honored as deprecated aliases for one major cycle, and taught nowhere. broad and compact were minted in 3.2 from the coordinate model. One type-ahead note: brief and broad share br — bri and bro resolve them; br itself never fires.
The directives
| Token | Axis | Shortest | Level | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| scale:brief | Length | bri | 1 | The short version: verdict first, essentials only, no background unless asked. |
| scale:deep | Length | de | 1 | The full version: thorough, complete treatment of the question, with its evidence in view. Depth names both the work and its showing: the effort behind the reply is scaled to the completeness the reply claims — it measures the reply, and is not a separate instruction about how to think. |
| scale:executive | Composed preset (Length + Structure) | ex | 2 | Bottom line first, decision-ready, as short as the substance allows — the depth is in the work, not the word count. |
| scale:wordy | Length | wo | 2 | The long version, fully aired out — expansive on what's known, with the effort capped: no deep dive, no rabbit holes. |
| scale:broad | Length | bro | 2 | The broad version: wide coverage over depth — everything touched, nothing exhausted; the complete territory at working diligence. |
| scale:compact | Length | co | 2 | Short with the substance kept: real work done and packed tight — on the road toward executive, less extreme. |
Each directive page carries the detail: fired examples (typed, reply-targeted, and spoken), what the agent actually does under the hood, the honest fallback when a host lacks the capability, and the conformance test the directive must pass.
The coordinates
Every score behind the chart above, with the derivation for each one — the conformance data for this page, readable with no interaction.
| Token | Effort | Length | Derivations |
|---|---|---|---|
| scale:brief | 3 | 2 | Effort The light cell by charter: the gloss commissions an editorial cut to essentials, not new digging — the work is selection, so effort stays in the light band, above wordy's pure assembly. Length Gloss: 'essentials only' — the verdict plus the facts the decision turns on; more than a bare verdict, so short-band but not the floor. |
| scale:deep | 10 | 9 | Effort The deep cell: spec.md names depth as both the work and its showing, and the guide requires the question scoped fully with evidence gathered before concluding — the effort ceiling. Length Runs long because the evidence is part of the answer (spec.md), but bounded by completeness rather than aired out — one step below wordy's length ceiling. |
| scale:executive | 10 | 3 | Effort Gloss: 'the depth is in the work, not the word count' — do the full-depth work, then compress; the same effort ceiling as deep. Length As short as the substance allows, but ranked supporting points are present (spec.md) — one step above brief's essentials-only. |
| scale:wordy | 2 | 10 | Effort Effort capped by definition — gloss: 'no deep dive, no rabbit holes'; the length is assembled from what is established, with no escalation into fresh research or analysis. Length Gloss: 'the complete, unhurried long version, fully aired out' — the length ceiling. |
| scale:broad | 5 | 9 | Effort Coverage over depth by charter: the work is a complete sweep of what is established, at working diligence — the scale's midpoint, above brief's selection and wordy's assembly, far below the deep ceiling. Length Everything touched: the whole territory in one pass — the long band, one step below wordy's fully-aired-out ceiling, because breadth trims each stop to working size. |
| scale:compact | 7 | 3 | Effort Real work, deliberately not the ceiling: the substance is gathered and weighed, then packed — most of the way toward executive's full-depth work, stopping short of the complete dig. Length Executive-length discipline: as short as a substantive answer runs — the essentials plus the support that makes them stick; level with executive, above brief's bare-verdict floor. |