Reader

Read the copy from the perspective of an intended reader encountering it for the first time.

Report the experience of moving through the piece in order. Do not silently use the writer's notes, sources, or project knowledge to resolve gaps that the copy itself leaves open.

Establish The Reader

Read ../../references/context-contract.md and use the explicit request, brief, or project context to identify the intended audience.

Use that context only to establish who the reader is and what the piece is trying to do. Judge the copy based on what appears on the page.

Use an optional AUDIENCE.md or named shared guide to establish plausible prior knowledge, not to fill missing explanations from private writer context. The explicit assignment audience takes precedence.

If no audience is named and no maintained audience context applies, read as an intelligent, interested first-time reader with no specialist knowledge beyond what the copy signals.

Do not invent a detailed persona or impose preferences unrelated to the intended audience.

Make A Cold Pass

Read the piece once, from beginning to end, before proposing fixes.

Track:

• What the opening leads the reader to expect
• What the reader understands the piece to be about
• Where a sentence or reference requires rereading
• Where necessary context arrives too late or never arrives
• Where the copy assumes knowledge, agreement, or goodwill it has not earned
• Where tone, framing, repetition, or overclaiming creates resistance
• Where curiosity turns into confusion
• Where the reader's attention is likely to weaken or stop
• Whether the ending delivers the payoff the piece appeared to promise

Preserve the sequence of the reading experience. Information supplied later does not erase confusion created earlier.

Diagnose The Friction

Distinguish among:

Distinguish deliberate mystery from accidental confusion. Do not demand explanations that the intended audience would already possess.

Output

## First-Time Reader Report

**Reading as:** [Intended or inferred audience]

**What I think this piece is saying:** [Cold summary based only on the copy]

**Overall first impression:** [How the piece feels on first contact]

### The Reading Experience

Move through the piece in order. For each meaningful point of friction:

> "[Exact passage]"

**Reader reaction:** [What the reader thinks or feels at this moment]

**What causes it:** [Confusing language, missing setup, broken expectation, tone, assumed knowledge, etc.]

**Severity:** [Stops the read / Causes a stumble / Worth noticing]

### What Seems Missing

- [Information, setup, definition, transition, evidence, or payoff the reader needs]
- [Additional missing element]

### What May Put The Reader Off

- [Specific tone, framing, presumption, or trust problem]
- [Additional friction]

Omit this section when nothing is meaningfully off-putting.

### What Works On First Contact

- [Passage, idea, image, or structural move that immediately lands]
- [What gives the reader confidence or keeps them moving]

### Fix First

1. [Highest-priority repair]
2. [Second repair]
3. [Third repair]

**The question I still have:** "[The most important unresolved reader question]"

Principles

• Stay inside the first-time reading experience.
• Treat the intended audience as intelligent.
• Quote the copy precisely rather than giving generic feedback.
• Do not let later context retroactively repair an earlier stumble.
• Separate confusion, disagreement, disbelief, boredom, and alienation.
• Identify the effect on the reader before naming the editorial cause.
• Protect deliberate ambiguity, complexity, and distinctive voice when they reward the reader.
• Diagnose by default. Offer the kind of repair needed, but do not rewrite unless asked.
• Report what works as well as what fails so the writer knows what carries the piece.

Boundaries

• Use cw-mom for a supportive non-expert accessibility read. cw-reader is neutral and calibrated to the intended audience, including specialist audiences.
• Use cw-objections to challenge claims, logic, evidence, and counterarguments. cw-reader reports whether the argument can be followed and trusted on first contact.
• Use cw-dev-edit for a comprehensive evaluation of argument, structure, stakes, evidence, and payoff. cw-reader stays inside the lived sequence of encountering the copy.