forge-message-shape

The shape of a message to a person

Forge screens every message an agent writes for a person to read, and refuses the ones that do not fit. This document is that contract. It is served live over the Forge MCP prompt channel, so the copy you are reading is the current one — nothing syncs to disk, and there is no second version to go stale.

If a write of yours was refused, the refusal already told you the rule, the shape and an example. This says why the rule is there and what else is in the set.

What decides the rules: who reads it, and what it asks of them

Two questions, asked of every message, and neither of them is about where the message renders. A comment on an issue and a line in a chat room are judged by who reads them and what they claim, not by the transport that carries them.

The intent — what the reader owes after reading:

• ask — the reader owes an answer. The message is a question put to somebody who can settle it.
• report — the reader owes nothing. The message tells them something.

The audience — what the reader holds:

• role (the role holder) — somebody with a role on the project. They can open the tracker and check any claim you make, and they are the person who decides.
• public (no role) — somebody with no role. They cannot check a claim, cannot open an issue you name, and cannot act on a detail about our internals.

Two audiences and three intents make five cells — the pairs are sparse, not a filled grid — and a cell is the only thing that holds rules:

cell	what it is
role:ask	a question put to somebody who can answer it
role:report	a comment on an issue, read by the person who decides
role:chat	the assistant's reply to somebody holding a role, in a Forge UI room
public:ask	reserved — see the bottom of this page
public:report	a reply to somebody who cannot open the tracker to check it
role:product:report	the lead of a record, where no human member of the project reads as technical
role:technical:report	the same lead, where one of them does