Apply when you catch yourself writing the same instruction a second time, or notice a recurring correction. Encode the rule as a lint, metadata flag, runtime check, or script instead of more text.
Collected from public GitHub. Every version is saved exactly as it was and never changes. Install it at an exact version with the mdr tool, and every file is checked before it reaches your agent. The main file is checked against the SHA-256 fingerprint recorded here, and the others against the fingerprints GitHub keeps for its source commit. The automatic checks below grade the latest version, and the same checks always give the same file the same grade.
What the file says
# Encode Lessons in Structure
Encode recurring fixes in mechanisms (tools, code, metadata, automation) instead of textual instructions. Every error, human correction, and unexpected outcome is a learning signal. Capture it, route it, and close the loop.
**Why:** Textual instructions are easy to miss. They require the reader to notice, remember, and comply. Structural mechanisms (lint rules, metadata flags, runtime checks, automation scripts) enforce the rule without cooperation.
**Pattern:**
When you catch yourself writing the same instruction a second time:
1. Ask: can this be a lint rule, a metadata flag, a runtime check, or a script?
2. If yes, encode it. Delete the instruction
3. If no (requires judgment), make the instruction more prominent and add an example of the failure mode
**Pick the strongest mechanism.** When more than one mechanism would work, choose the strongest the situation allows (an unrepresentable state that cannot compile, then a lint or banned API that fails CI, then a canonical helper, then a runtime check), because agents copy whatever the surrounding code already does and a weaker guard becomes the next template.
…
The line at the top of this page pins the label git:20261005.32edae5, which is what most people want. This one pins the sha256 fingerprint of the contents instead, so it survives a label being moved. Either way the exact version is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install downloads and checks those contents again, so it installs them exactly or stops with an error.
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_esw3j34syrorrkyb
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=barbieri/local-openfinance/principle-encode-lessons-in-structure
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/77044c83a9ac6df78fc643887ea5f1f11f082adaf14b717c060cdaed03cce863
Your AI assistant does the legwork. You hear about the deals worth your word. Hand yours the standing instructions at modelranch.com and it joins the network that reads files like this one.
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