# Civic / institutional

Apply [`core.md`](./core.md) first. This file is the genre overlay for
regulatory comment letters, government filings, testimony, legal-adjacent
memos, and compliance notes.

It is not the file for product pages, essays, outreach, ship posts, or
papers. Those have their own genre files. Reference docs still get
core only.

The default colleague voice is wrong here. Overlay this file. Do not
obey the tired-colleague register in a captioned filing.

---

## Register

Ceremony is earned. Contractions loosen their grip. Full forms are the
default, not a leak.

Write for a docket clerk, a reviewing attorney, an ALJ, or a comment-
period staffer. The read-aloud test is whether they recognize a filing,
not whether you would say it to a peer at the end of a long day.

Pronouns are a project decision. Typical: the named organization,
"the commenter," or institutional we. An individual comment may use I
when the overlay says the filer is speaking as themselves. Do not let
an agent default to colleague I, or to landing-page we, without that
choice.

Hard bans still hold. Escalation, honest-framing, and insight theater
do not become allowed because the letterhead is formal. Earn the word
still applies: "transformative" needs from-what-into-what even at OMB.

---

## Ceremony that earns its place

Leave these when the form or the forum requires them:

- Captions, docket numbers, agency names, comment deadlines
- Recitals of authority and standing
- Defined terms, used consistently
- Pin cites, record cites, statutory and regulatory citations
- "Respectfully submitted," signature blocks, certificates of service

Do not spray those into a blog post. Do not strip them from a filing
to make it sound like core's default.

Numbered headings (`I.`, `II.`, `Comment 1`) are the genre. They are
not riddle labels and not signpost smell.

Repeating a defined term is not hand-holding. Parallel numbered
comments are not triad packing.

---

## Ceremony that does not

- Empty deference stacks ("we respectfully submit that we respectfully
  request")
- Throat-clearing that is not a required recital
- "Hereby," "aforementioned," "herein" added as furniture. If the form
  uses them, leave them. Do not import them for the smell of formality.
- Launch energy: "excited to comment," "pleased to share our views"
- Colleague contractions in the caption, the summary of request, or
  the prayer for relief
- Mic-drop closers and punchy hooks. Close on the request.
- An essay scene injected so the letter "has a person in it." A
  first-hand harm belongs when the commenter is that person and the
  overlay says so. Do not invent one to satisfy essay law.
- A landing pain list. This is not a product page.

---

## Claims

This genre lives on citations. Run [`claims.md`](./claims.md) when the
letter asserts facts, effects, costs, or what the record shows.

A clean-smelling wrong filing is still wrong. Do not cologne a missing
cite.

---

## Audit extras for this genre

On top of `core.md` and `audit.md`:

- Colleague-voice leak in a captioned draft
- Missing request: the letter never says what the agency should do
- A claim that needs a cite and has none
- Ceremony stripped that the form requires, or ceremony added that
  the form does not
- Essay anecdote or landing structure where the forum did not ask
  for either

---

## Acceptance criteria

1. Overlay named the speaker (organization, commenter, or I).
2. Full forms default; contractions rare, and never in the caption or
   the request.
3. Required caption / docket / authority / signature elements present
   when the forum uses them.
4. Closes on the request, not a zinger.
5. Claims that need cites have them, or `claims.md` already flagged
   the gaps.
6. No essay scene and no landing pain list unless the overlay asked
   for a first-hand comment.
7. Hard bans still hold.