AE-CTX-006 is informational — it does not deduct points or affect your Charter score. It surfaces so you can review instruction density before it quietly degrades agent behavior.
Why this rule
Agents that receive a high density of emphatic directives show measurably reduced instruction adherence. When every sentence opens withIMPORTANT: or NEVER, the signal-to-noise ratio collapses — nothing stands out as genuinely exceptional, so the agent discounts them all equally.
Declarative phrasing transfers more reliably: “Tests run with go test. No silent mutation.” is easier for an agent to act on than a paragraph of stacked imperatives saying the same thing louder.
What triggers it
Charter counts emphatic directive words in the context file —IMPORTANT, NEVER, MUST, ALWAYS, CRITICAL, WARNING, and similar — and computes a density relative to word count. The finding fires when density exceeds roughly 15 per 1,000 words.
The finding reports the exact count and density so you can judge how far over the threshold the file sits.
Examples
- High density (finding fires)
- Selective use (passes)
AGENTS.md
How to fix
Review the context file for stacked imperatives and convert routine guidance to plain declarative sentences.1
Replace imperative stacks with declarative sentences
Instead of
IMPORTANT: Always run tests before committing, write Run tests before committing or just list the verification command. The instruction is the same; the emphatic wrapper adds no information.2
Reserve emphatic words for genuine exceptions
Keep
NEVER and CRITICAL for constraints where a violation would cause real, hard-to-reverse harm — deleting user data, committing credentials, bypassing security controls. Use them for one or two things, not for every routine convention.3
Rewrite as structured sections
A short “Hard constraints” section with three plain bullet points is more scannable — and more adherence-inducing — than ten
IMPORTANT: lines scattered through the file.Score impact
Informational (0 points deducted). The finding surfaces incharter explain and charter doctor output and re-surfaces on each run, but does not affect the numeric score or engage any cap.
Edge cases
This rule only fires when a context file exists. A missing context file is AE-CTX-001’s concern, not AE-CTX-006’s.Related rules
AE-CTX-001
Context file must exist and be within budget.
AE-CTX-002
Context file must match repo reality.