Published registry
Patterns you can cite.
Every check the Wording Clinic applies is published here with a stable identifier, a permanent URL and a definition written to be quoted. A flag is not our opinion about your contract — it is a reference to seven patterns fixed in advance, which you can read, disagree with, and hold us to.
Registry version 1.0.0Last revised Changelogpatterns.json
Structural — likely to produce a disputed resolution
- PMI-WP-001Subjective languageThe text contains at least one evaluative term whose application to a given state of the world depends on the reader — “significant”, “major”, “materially” and their kin. Two resolvers acting in good faith can reach opposite conclusions without either misreading the contract.Contract design & wording
- PMI-WP-002Compound conditionMore than one fact is bundled into a single resolution, joined by “and” or “or”, with no stated rule for the case where the halves resolve differently. The contract has no defined outcome for a partial truth.Contract design & wording
- PMI-WP-003No resolution source namedThe text does not name whose account of the world settles the question. Absent a named source, resolution falls to whoever is holding the pen when the outcome is contested.Settlement & resolution governance
Wording — clarify before this goes live
- PMI-WP-004No resolution deadline statedThe text states no date or bounded period after which the question stops being open. An unbounded question cannot be settled against, and cannot be shown to have failed to settle.Contract design & wording
- PMI-WP-005No dispute or tie-break procedureThe text does not say what happens when two readers disagree about the outcome: who decides, on what grounds, and within what window. A procedure designed after the first dispute is a procedure designed by the dispute.Settlement & resolution governance
Note — worth confirming
- PMI-WP-006No halt or suspension criteriaThe text states no basis for halting or suspending trading if the underlying event becomes contested or the resolution source stops publishing mid-market. Silence here is common and is not always a defect — venue policy may already cover it.Market integrity
- PMI-WP-007Numeric threshold without a rounding ruleA numeric comparison is stated without the precision and rounding convention needed to evaluate it identically twice. “More than 5%” resolves differently at 5.004% depending on where the reader rounds.Measurement & calibration
How to use it
Three ways in, one registry.
The Wording Clinic runs entirely in your browser: paste a question, get the flags, send nothing anywhere.
POST /api/clinic applies the same engine to one question or a hundred, and returns each flag with its identifier and permanent URL. Nothing posted to it is stored.
patterns.json is the registry itself, versioned, for anyone building against it rather than reading it.
An identifier is a promise: PMI-WP-001 will never be reused and never renumbered. A withdrawn pattern keeps its number and stops matching; a changed definition gets a new registry version and a changelog entry. If it were otherwise, every flag anyone had ever cited would quietly mean something else.