# For agents: The ideal OpenProse

Edition: 2026-10-09.

An aspiration for readable, reusable agreements and useful work that needs less repeated attention. The model-documentation scenario is illustrative; intent capture, continuing-work triggers, dependable operation, and commercial value remain open questions or hypotheses.

Choose a board for its slide copy, developed explanation, and original image sequence.

- [01 — Contract engineering](https://prose.md/visual-guide/ideal/01.md): State the result and the requirements, then leave the agent room to choose an approach.
- [02 — What the author controls](https://prose.md/visual-guide/ideal/02.md): Keep meaningful requirements stable as the model, agent, and tools change.
- [03 — A readable agreement](https://prose.md/visual-guide/ideal/03.md): People and agents read the same Markdown agreement, including any required procedures.
- [04 — Open question: intent and the contract](https://prose.md/visual-guide/ideal/04.md): Whether a contract preserves the person’s intent remains an open design question.
- [05 — Composition](https://prose.md/visual-guide/ideal/05.md): Compose documentation, evidence, policy, and review requirements with explicit scopes.
- [06 — Parameterized composition](https://prose.md/visual-guide/ideal/06.md): Supply contracts as named roles in a reusable relationship, such as assessing existing work.
- [07 — A small seed, a large library](https://prose.md/visual-guide/ideal/07.md): Use a small kernel to find the selected agreement and the definitions it adopts.
- [08 — Public and private libraries](https://prose.md/visual-guide/ideal/08.md): Combine shared foundations and specialist contracts with each organization’s own requirements.
- [09 — Execution and evaluation](https://prose.md/visual-guide/ideal/09.md): Use the selected agreement to guide execution and assess the result with its evidence.
- [10 — Tests are contracts too](https://prose.md/visual-guide/ideal/10.md): Test a checker with a controlled defect and a separately held expected finding.
- [11 — Back pressure from checking contracts](https://prose.md/visual-guide/ideal/11.md): Supplied checking contracts examine recorded work and inform deliberate improvements.
- [12 — A continuing responsibility](https://prose.md/visual-guide/ideal/12.md): Maintain a responsibility across invocations, doing work when evaluation shows it is needed.
- [13 — Open question: what starts the next invocation?](https://prose.md/visual-guide/ideal/13.md): The entry point, trigger, and owner of continuing work remain open questions.
- [14 — Attention follows meaningful change](https://prose.md/visual-guide/ideal/14.md): Use meaningful changes to focus evaluation, then reuse evidence that still applies.
- [15 — Portability earns its credibility](https://prose.md/visual-guide/ideal/15.md): Measure requirement preservation and task performance across different execution environments.
- [16 — A commons and a business](https://prose.md/visual-guide/ideal/16.md): Explore a public commons alongside paid expertise and dependable operation.
- [17 — Useful work, less repeated attention](https://prose.md/visual-guide/ideal/17.md): Aim for inspectable work, understandable changes, and questions that need human judgment.

[Guide index](https://prose.md/visual-guide.md) · [Agent entry](https://prose.md/agents.md)