anchor git:20260817.f04083fA

Immutable. This exact content is served forever at /api/v1/blob/dce54daaae0a96a1.

---
name: anchor
description: Rewrite a rule so anyone applies it the same way. Use when a stated rule or claim takes the reader's judgment to apply.
---

Find where the judgment hides: the word or clause two readers would apply differently. Replace it with something mechanical — a question with a yes/no answer, a check a machine could run, a fixture with win conditions anyone reads off the same way. Prefer the trigger a machine could evaluate over the one a careful reader could.

Silently audit the rewrite: it must decide every case the original decided, the same way. Each case it loses means you narrowed — back off by the minimum until every case fits again.

Hand back the rule with its mechanical trigger, and show it deciding one of the cases it came from so the user watches it run. Name any judgment that resisted going mechanical — that part is still open.

The complaint is coverage, not checkability → use **widen** skill. The cases changed, or the rule now serves a different objective → the rule needs deriving fresh, not anchoring.