bare-imperative

An advisory by default: it explains, and blocks nothing, on a short command in a review reply that gives no reason anywhere ("Fix this.").

What it catches

A short command in a review reply that gives no reason anywhere ("Fix this.").

Dimension

stance: the text reads as a verdict on a person, or as addressed to someone else. A finding is counted on the dimension of its rule, the cost it names to the reader.

Why

Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil et al. (ACL 2013) found a bare imperative, and a request opening with "Please", read as less polite than one that gives its reason or asks. A command of five words or fewer counts, unless the reply gives a reason anywhere or the command names code or its target ("change this to appsettings"). Measured 2026-10-10 over the AIDev review comments: 4.56 percent of 39639 written by people and 0.07 percent of 42076 written by bots. It advises: between people who share the context, a short command can be read as intended. Measured 2026-10-11 over the adjudicated labeling round: 37.2% precision (16 of 43) before, 100% (16 of 16) after. Most firings followed a sentence stating the problem ("Duplicate documentation. Remove it."), so only a reply made of bare commands is judged. Labeling round 3 measured 29 of 40, a lower bound of 0.57, which each graded finding weighs.

Default decision

The code is PRF8012. The decision depends on the kind of text judged:

Changing it

A decisions table sets this rule to deny, advise or off, for everything judged or for the files a glob matches. Proofread reads the table from the file its -decisions flag names:

{
  "rules": {"bare-imperative": "deny"},
  "paths": {"blog/**": {"bare-imperative": "off"}}
}

rules applies to every file. A glob in paths applies to the files it matches, and the last match wins. A rule set to off never reports.

Seeing it

A finding names the rule, its code and the decision that applies, and links here:

{"rule": "bare-imperative", "code": "PRF8012", "decision": "advise", "url": "https://eli.gladman.cc/magus/reference/proofread/bare-imperative/"}

proofread rules prints this entry with every other rule's.

See also

• All proofread rules - every rule, grouped by what it checks
• Writing rules - how the rules apply to this repository's pages and pull requests
• The findings contract - the fields every finding carries