STE-Prompt

Simplified Technical English (ASD-STE100) for your coding agent.

STE-Prompt makes Claude Code, Codex, and other agents write explanations, runbooks, and procedures in Simplified Technical English — the controlled language the aerospace and defence industry has used for decades to make maintenance manuals unambiguous.

Short sentences. One idea each. Active voice. A controlled vocabulary where every approved word has one meaning. The result is output you can scan fast and misread rarely.

Why

LLM prose hides ambiguity in two places: hedging ("this might potentially help") and compound sentences that pack three claims into one. STE removes both mechanically. It is a rule-based style, so a model can actually follow it.

Use it for procedures, runbooks, agent step logs, and API how-tos. Do not use it for nuance, risk discussion, or research summaries — there, the hedging is the content.

Install

Claude Code (plugin — recommended)

This repo is a Claude Code plugin and a one-plugin marketplace. Install it straight from GitHub:

/plugin marketplace add menonpg/ste-prompt
/plugin install ste-prompt@menonlab

That gives you:

• the /ste slash command (rewrite a block on demand),
• a simplified-technical-english skill the agent invokes automatically when you ask for STE / clearer procedures,
• the full rule set and dictionary as reference.

Then:

/ste            rewrite the previous answer in Simplified Technical English
/ste <text>     rewrite the given text in STE

Claude Code (manual, no plugin)

Copy claude/commands/ste.md into .claude/commands/ (project) or ~/.claude/commands/ (global). For a persistent style, copy claude/output-styles/ste.md into .claude/output-styles/ and select it with /output-style.

Codex / other agents

STE-Prompt works in Codex too — Codex doesn't use Claude's plugin format, so you install it as agent instructions instead. Two options:

Option 1 — AGENTS.md (recommended). Codex automatically reads AGENTS.md from the repo root (and ~/.codex/AGENTS.md for all projects). Append our rules:

# per-project
cat AGENTS.ste.md >> AGENTS.md

# or global, for every Codex session
mkdir -p ~/.codex && cat AGENTS.ste.md >> ~/.codex/AGENTS.md

The agent then writes explanations, runbooks, and procedures in Simplified Technical English by default. The behavior travels with the repo.

Option 2 — on-demand prompt. Paste AGENTS.ste.md (or RULES.md) into any Codex / ChatGPT / Gemini / Cursor chat and say "rewrite the above in Simplified Technical English using these rules." No install needed — it's just a prompt.

The same AGENTS.md drop-in works for any agent that reads an AGENTS.md convention (Cursor, Cline, Aider, Windsurf, OpenClaw, etc.).

The rules (condensed)

See RULES.md for the full set and DICTIONARY.md for approved-verb substitutions.

1. Keep procedural sentences to 20 words or fewer; descriptive to 25.
2. One instruction per sentence.
3. Use the active voice.
4. Use the present tense for procedures.
5. Start an instruction with the command verb ("Remove the bolt.").
6. Use articles ("the file," not "file").
7. Do not use a noun as a verb.
8. Use only approved words — one meaning per word (see DICTIONARY.md).
9. Write one topic per paragraph; lead with the topic sentence.
10. Use a vertical list for more than three conditions or steps.

License

MIT. Borrowed from aerospace, where a misread sentence has consequences.

ASD-STE100 is a trademark of ASD (AeroSpace and Defence Industries Association of Europe). This project reproduces none of the Specification text; it provides original guidance inspired by the public description of the standard.

Also check out

MotionStudio — another Menon Lab plugin for Claude Code & Codex. Turns a topic into a finished, rendered explainer video (script, storyboard, motion, sound, captions) via a deterministic HTML-to-MP4 pipeline. motion.themenonlab.com

Related work

agent-ste by ctotheameron takes a stricter, complementary approach: instead of guiding the model to write in STE, it enforces ASD-STE100 at the keystroke — a linter that blocks the write and names each fault (Use "use", not "leverages", Do not use a semicolon, This sentence has 30 words). Hard faults stop the tool call before the file changes; heuristics warn but never block; it lints prose only and leaves your code untouched. It runs in Claude Code, in pi, and standalone. STE-Prompt shapes the output; agent-ste polices it — they pair well.

{
  "name": "menonlab",
  "owner": {
    "name": "The Menon Lab",
    "url": "https://blog.themenonlab.com"
  },
  "plugins": [
    {
      "name": "ste-prompt",
      "source": "./",
      "description": "Simplified Technical English (ASD-STE100) for Claude Code — a /ste slash command, an output style, and a skill that make agent explanations and runbooks short, active, and unambiguous."
    }
  ]
}