Applying ASD-STE100
Preserve technical meaning while making documentation clear and unambiguous. Use ASD-STE100 Issue 9 (2025-01-15) unless the user specifies another issue.
Set the Scope
- For drafting or revision requests, produce the requested text or make the requested in-scope local edits.
- For review, explanation, or compliance questions, inspect and report without changing files.
- Treat an explicit request for STE or ASD-STE100 as a request to check both writing rules and vocabulary.
- For requests to apply only the principles, use the clarity guidance without presenting the result as compliant STE.
- STE is an English controlled language for technical documentation. For other languages, apply clarity principles only, unless the user requests an English translation.
- Classify each passage as procedural or descriptive before checking its sentence limits and verb constructions. A document can contain both types.
- Retain applicable project rules for formatting, units, abbreviations, and safety labels. Do not attribute these project rules to STE.
Establish the Evidence
For Issue 9, read the Issue 9 application guide before drafting or checking text. It gives a paraphrased checklist, rule references, and the official source link; it is not the standard or a complete dictionary. For another requested issue, use that issue's source rules and dictionary instead of the bundled Issue 9 checklist. Do not assume that rule numbers, definitions, or exceptions are unchanged between issues.
For an STE check, consult the applicable rules and dictionary entries in the official issue or a user-provided copy. Check each word's approved part of speech, meaning, and permitted form, not merely its presence in the dictionary. Use the project glossary and the standard's categories to assess technical nouns and technical verbs. Do not invent dictionary approval, rule numbers, or project terminology approval.
If the standard cannot be accessed, continue only with clearly labeled principles-based assistance or a partial review. Identify the checks that remain unavailable. Do not treat missing evidence as a confirmed violation or silently replace the requested issue with another one.
Draft or Revise
- Extract the required actions, conditions, sequence, actors, technical nouns and verbs, measurements, limits, prohibitions, and hazards.
- Resolve terminology against the supplied source and project glossary. Keep exact identifiers, commands, code, quoted interface labels, and externally fixed titles unchanged.
- Apply the relevant rules from the selected issue, using the bundled application guide only for Issue 9. Restructure sentences when a word substitution changes the meaning or grammar.
- Compare the result with the source for omissions, changed obligations, reversed conditions, changed action order, and altered values or units.
- Check writing rules, sentence counts, vocabulary, and terminology separately. Use the STE counting conventions, not a whitespace count alone.
Do not invent operating limits, required tools, prerequisites, risk levels, or hazard consequences to complete a rewrite. When a technical ambiguity affects safety or correctness, preserve the unresolved content and identify the clarification needed. Language editing does not validate the procedure's technical safety.
Review and Report
Lead a review with the most important meaning or safety problem, then confirmed language violations. For each finding, give the location, original text, problem, applicable rule or dictionary entry when verified, and a specific correction. Separate confirmed violations from unresolved vocabulary or terminology checks and optional clarity improvements. Use the same checks for the final pass on drafted or revised text.
Return the requested artifact first for drafting or revision work. Add a short verification note when STE compliance was requested: issue used, checks completed, and material gaps. Do not claim full compliance from sentence length, this checklist, or an automated checker alone. Stop when the requested scope is complete and remaining evidence or technical questions are explicit.