verdict

An advisory by default: it explains, and blocks nothing, on a judgment word standing in for the behavior it judges ("was broken", "a mess").

What it catches

A judgment word standing in for the behavior it judges ("was broken", "a mess").

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

A verdict tells the reader what to think in place of what happened. It advises because "broken" and "wrong" also name a broken test or the wrong checkout; it moves to deny only after every firing on real text was right. Measured 2026-10-11 over the adjudicated labeling round: 20.9% precision (9 of 43) before, 100% (9 of 9) after. Most firings named the behavior beside the word, so a verdict with a reason or cause in its sentence, or a later sentence in its paragraph, is left alone, as are quoted words, a broken test or link, a denied or supposed state ("nothing was broken", "may be broken"), and the verb senses ("broken into lines", "mess with"). Labeling round 3 measured 16 of 40, a lower bound of 0.26, which each graded finding weighs.

Default decision

The code is PRF2002. 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": {"verdict": "deny"},
  "paths": {"blog/**": {"verdict": "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": "verdict", "code": "PRF2002", "decision": "advise", "url": "https://eli.gladman.cc/magus/reference/proofread/verdict/"}

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