render-output

Transform structured data from agents into clear, scannable terminal output. This skill provides patterns for presenting information to users in the most readable format based on data type and context. Key principle: Output should be scannable in under 5 seconds. Choose the simplest pattern that communicates the information effectively. Select pattern based on data type:

Data Type	Pattern	Use When
Machine-readable	TOON block	Returning data to subagents
Listings	Markdown table	Human comparisons, listings
Action result	Status line	Single operation outcome
Validation	Box report	Multi-check with pass/fail
Counts	Summary line	Aggregates, distributions
Default to the simplest pattern. Escalate complexity only when needed.
For structured data returned to subagents or machine processing:

@type: [SchemaType]
@id: [unique-identifier]
[scalar properties]
[table]{columns|tab}:
[row1 tab-separated]
[row2 tab-separated]

Rules:

• ALWAYS include @type and @id
• Use tab-separated tables for arrays
• Prefer flat structure (avoid nesting >2 levels)
• No prose - data only
• Use toon language tag for syntax highlighting
  Example:

@type: AssessAction
@id: 005-auth
actionStatus: CompletedActionStatus
validationStatus: VALID
checksPerformed: 10
issues.critical: 0
issues.warning: 1

For human-readable listings and comparisons:

| Column1 | Column2 | Column3 |
|---------|---------|---------|
| value1  | value2  | value3  |

Rules:

• Maximum 6 columns (truncate or split if more)
• Align columns consistently
• Truncate cells >30 chars with ...
• Right-align numbers
• Keep header row concise
  Example:

| ID         | Name           | Stage       | Priority |
|------------|----------------|-------------|----------|
| 005-auth   | Implement Auth | in-progress | P1       |
| 006-mgmt   | User Management| ready       | P2       |

For single action outcomes:

[symbol] [action verb] [target]: [brief result]

Symbols:

• ✓ success
• ✗ failure
• ⚠ warning
• → transition
  Examples:

✓ Created outcome 005-auth in queued/
✓ Synced capabilities-info.toon (12 capabilities)
✗ Validation failed: 3 critical issues
⚠ Index stale, auto-syncing...

For short lists (<5 items), use indented bullets:

✓ Created 3 outcomes
  - 005-auth (queued)
  - 006-mgmt (queued)
  - 007-report (queued)

For validation reports and multi-section results:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Title]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Section1:     [✓/✗] [details]
Section2:     [✓/✗] [details]
Section3:     [✓/✗] [details]
Overall: [PASS ✓ / FAIL ✗ / NEEDS_ATTENTION ⚠]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Use box drawing characters:

• = horizontal line
• │ vertical line (if needed)
• ┌┐└┘ corners (if needed)
  Reserve for:
• Validation reports (>3 checks)
• Multi-section summaries
• Error reports with details

For counts, distributions, and quick stats: Single line for simple counts: ``` Summary: 11 total | 3 queued | 2 ready | 1 in-progress | 5 completed ```

Two lines for distributions:

Summary: 11 total | 3 queued | 2 ready | 1 in-progress | 5 completed
         9 parent | 2 child | P1: 6 | P2: 4 | P3: 1

Rules:

• Use | as separator
• Align related groups
• Maximum two lines

For visual distribution of values:

Maturity Distribution:
  0-29%:   ### (3)
  30-59%:  ##### (5)
  60-79%:  ### (3)
  80-100%: # (1)

Rules:

• Use # for bar chart
• Include count in parentheses
• Align labels and bars

Choose pattern based on: 1. **Audience**: Subagent (TOON) vs Human (table/status/box) 2. **Complexity**: Simple (status) → Complex (box) 3. **Data shape**: List (table) vs Result (status) vs Validation (box) Decision tree: ``` Is output for another agent? ├─ Yes → TOON block └─ No → Is it a single action result? ├─ Yes → Status line └─ No → Is it validation with pass/fail? ├─ Yes → Box report └─ No → Is it a list/comparison? ├─ Yes → Markdown table └─ No → Summary line ``` Standard symbols for consistent output:

Symbol	Meaning	Unicode	Usage
✓	Success/pass	U+2713	Completed actions, passing checks
✗	Failure/fail	U+2717	Failed actions, failing checks
⚠	Warning	U+26A0	Needs attention, non-critical
→	Transition	U+2192	State changes, version bumps
•	Bullet	U+2022	List items
=	Horizontal	U+2501	Box borders
│	Vertical	U+2502	Box borders

DO NOT use emoji. Stick to these standard symbols.

Avoid these common mistakes:

• Excessive whitespace: Don't add blank lines between every element
• Nested boxes: Don't put boxes inside boxes
• Mixed styles: Don't combine table + box in same output
• Emoji overuse: Stick to standard symbols (✓✗⚠)
• Long prose: Output should be data-focused, not explanatory
• Missing language tags: Always tag code blocks (toon, markdown)
• Inconsistent alignment: Align columns and values consistently
• Over-engineering: Don't use box for simple status
• Column overflow: Keep tables under 6 columns

Output meets quality standards when:

• Pattern matches data type (use decision tree)
• Symbols used consistently throughout
• No excessive whitespace or blank lines
• Code blocks have language tags
• Tables stay under 6 columns
• Box reports used only for complex validation
• TOON used for machine-readable returns
• Human output is scannable in <5 seconds
• No mixed patterns in single output

Outcomes Overview (synced: 2025-12-02T10:30:00Z)
Summary: 11 total | 3 queued | 2 ready | 1 in-progress | 0 blocked | 5 completed
Current Focus: 005-implement-auth (in-progress)

ID	Name	Stage	Priority	Capabilities
005-implement-auth	Implement Auth	in-progress	P1	auth-system:30%
006-user-mgmt	User Management	ready	P2	user-mgmt:25%
007-reporting	Reporting	queued	P3	reporting:20%
Blocked: None

ws Plugin Published
4745a58 feat(ws): add out/list command
0.9.2 → 0.9.3 (minor)
✓ Committed, pushed, synced

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Validation Report: 005-auth ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Schema: ✓ Valid YAML frontmatter
Achievement: ✓ Behavioral focus
Effects: ✓ 3 Given-When-Then
Capabilities: ✓ Links valid
Actors: ⚠ 1 unknown actor ID

Overall: NEEDS_ATTENTION ⚠
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

@type: ItemList
@id: outcome-list-result
numberOfItems: 11
summary.total: 11
summary.queued: 3
summary.completed: 5
outcome{id,name,stage|tab}:
005-auth	Implement Auth	in-progress
006-mgmt	User Management	ready