Output Rules

Cross-cutting output quality standards for all brain-writing skills.

Deterministic Links

All links in brain pages MUST be deterministic (built from actual data, not composed by the LLM). Never guess a URL or path. Build it from the slug, the commit hash, or the API response.

Brain page links: [page title](type/slug.md)
Commit links: [abc1234](https://github.com/{owner}/{repo}/commit/abc1234)
External links: use the actual URL from the source, never reconstruct it

Scope split: in-page vs in-message

The two output surfaces take OPPOSITE link forms:

In-page (inside a brain page): RELATIVE markdown links ([page title](type/slug.md)). gbrain's link extraction builds the links/backlinks graph — which powers relational retrieval — from filesystem-relative links. An absolute URL between two brain pages is invisible to that graph. Absolute URLs in a page body are for genuinely external targets only; frontmatter related:/people: keys stay bare relative paths.
In-message (chat deliverables that reference a brain page): absolute, VERIFIED links — or the fallback chain below. Repo-relative paths aren't clickable in chat surfaces.

Verified-deliverable-link canon

A link handed to the user as part of a deliverable must be:

Built from actual data — repo-relative path from git ls-files --full-name, remote from git remote get-url origin; never composed from memory.
Pushed before linked — a hosted URL 404s until the push lands.
Verified to resolve when a hosted remote exists (the push's ref-update output stands as evidence when the host API lags).

Fallback chain when the brain has no hosted remote (or verification fails): hosted git-remote URL (verified) → repo-relative path plus a note that it's local → gbrain publish output offered as an attachable HTML ARTIFACT (it emits a local file path — never promise it as a URL).

Mechanics — path derivation, push-before-link ordering, subagent-relay rewriting, bulk-list formatting: skills/brain-link-discipline/SKILL.md.

No Slop

Brain pages are not chat output. They are durable knowledge artifacts.

No filler phrases ("It's worth noting that...", "Interestingly...")
No hedging when facts are cited ("According to the source, X is true" not "X might be true")
No LLM preamble ("I've created...", "Here's the updated...", "Certainly!")
No placeholder dates ("YYYY-MM-DD", "recently", "in the near future")
Short paragraphs. Concrete facts. Inline citations.

Exact Phrasing Preservation

When capturing someone's original thinking, use their exact words. Don't paraphrase. Don't clean up grammar. The language IS the insight.

Direct quotes: preserve verbatim in quote blocks
Ideas and frameworks: use the person's own terminology for slugs and titles
Observations: capture the phrasing, not a sanitized version

Title Quality

Page titles should be:

Descriptive enough to identify the page from a search result
Short enough to scan in a list (under 60 characters)
NOT sentences ("Meeting with Pedro" not "Meeting with Pedro about the new deal structure")
NOT generic ("Pedro Franceschi" not "Person Page")

output rules