Writing GitHub Comments

The overall goal here is to make GitHub comments in issues and PRs (particularly the first/leading comment) more readable to broader audiences. Avoid too much internal jargon, particularly up-front. Especially avoid elliptical language, use plain terms where possible.

What follows are guidelines, the important thing is the principle. If the issue or PR pertains to a complex technical validation issue, then assume a technical audience, and it will be necessary to use technical language around the schema, LinkML etc. If the issue/PR involves nuanced interpretation of cellular data, then assume a cell/molbio audience. And so on.

Scope. PR bodies, issue comments, review bodies and replies, and the summaries scheduled workflows post. Not in scope: prose inside KB YAML (description, explanation, notes) or in docs/. Those are written for a curator who wants the mechanism, and their denser register is correct — do not apply this skill's plainness rules to them.

The rules

BLUF: Lead with the finding, ideally around 3 sentences. Use plain language, ideally with minimal technical jargon (technical details specific to the intended audience can come later).

Avoid abstract and elliptical language. Avoid metaphors. Be concrete. If it is necessary to use abstractions, ground these with concrete examples.

Say the plain thing when something is wrong. If a decision looks like a mistake, write "I think this is wrong, because X". Do not build an elaborate frame around it. Elliptical prose most often appears where an agent has found a contradiction and is hedging instead of reporting it — the hedge is the defect, not the style.

Use diagrams where appropriate. GitHub will render both mermaid and simple ascii diagrams. Use judgment. With mermaid you have less control of layout, and it will be less compact, but it can be easier to grasp on a first pass.

No meta-commentary. Do not narrate your process, list what you could not check unless it changes the conclusion, apologize for length, or tell the reader you tried to write plainly. Saying you were brief is not being brief.

Never write bare #1, #2 for your own list items — GitHub expands them into unrelated issue titles. Write "item 1", "finding 2". Reserve #N for real issue and PR references. (Also in CLAUDE.md.)