Weak Language¶
Rule ID: content-weak-language
Detect hedging, vague, and non-actionable language in instruction files
| Severity | warning (auto) |
| Autofix | llm |
| Since | v0.7.0 |
Research Basis¶
Detects hedging and vague language ("try to", "maybe consider", "if possible") in instruction files.
LLMs respond to direct, assertive instructions. Hedging language introduces ambiguity about whether the instruction is mandatory or optional, and the model may treat it as the latter. Bsharat et al. tested 26 prompting principles and found that direct language ("Your task is", "You MUST") yielded 57.7% quality improvement over hedged equivalents.
Anthropic's own prompting guide says: "Claude performs best with clear, direct instructions." OpenAI's guide echoes this: "The more specific and detailed your instructions, the more likely you'll receive the output you want."
References:
- Bsharat et al., Principled Instructions Are All You Need for Questioning LLaMA-1/2, GPT-3.5/4 (arXiv:2312.16171, Dec 2023) — Principles #1 and #6
- Anthropic Prompting Best Practices — "Be clear and direct"
- OpenAI Prompt Engineering Guide — "Write clear instructions"