comment-block
A house-style rule, off until a decisions table turns it on: it reports a doc comment over 250 words.
What it catches
A doc comment over 250 words.
Dimension
economy: words that carry nothing. A finding is counted on
the dimension of its rule, the cost it names to the reader.
Why
House style: measured 2026-10-06 over 46664 comment blocks, a block's p50 is 25 words, p90 72 and p99 168; the cap sits past p99 and catches a design document living in a comment.
Default decision
The code is PRF6001. The decision depends on the kind of text judged:
| Kind | Default |
|---|---|
doc-comment |
off |
stylesheet |
off |
House style ships off: the rule encodes one repository's conventions, not
a rule of plain writing. A repository turns it on in its decisions table.
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": {"comment-block": "deny"},
"paths": {"blog/**": {"comment-block": "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": "comment-block", "code": "PRF6001", "decision": "deny", "url": "https://eli.gladman.cc/magus/reference/proofread/comment-block/"}
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