feat(prompts): add context verification markers to SDD workflow prompts

[ryderstorm]

Why?

This PR addresses the silent failure mode known as context rot - a phenomenon where AI performance degrades as input context length increases, even when tasks remain simple. Research from Chroma and Anthropic demonstrates that even with long context windows (128K+ tokens), models can lose track of critical instructions without signaling errors.

Evidence:

• Commit 6901e14 adds emoji-based verification markers to all SDD workflow prompts
• Research documentation added in docs/emoji-context-verification-research.md cites Chroma and Anthropic studies on context rot

The emoji verification technique, shared by Lada Kesseler at AI Native Dev Con Fall 2025, provides immediate visual feedback when critical instructions are being followed versus falling off due to context rot or inefficient compaction. This is essential for production AI workflows where silent instruction loss can cause significant issues.

What Changed?

Added context verification markers to all four SDD workflow prompts and comprehensive research documentation explaining the technique.

Key Changes:

• Added SDD1️⃣ marker to generate-spec.md prompt
• Added SDD2️⃣ marker to generate-task-list-from-spec.md prompt
• Added SDD3️⃣ marker to manage-tasks.md prompt
• Added SDD4️⃣ marker to validate-spec-implementation.md prompt
• Added research documentation at docs/emoji-context-verification-research.md explaining context rot and the verification technique

Files Modified:

• prompts/generate-spec.md
• prompts/generate-task-list-from-spec.md
• prompts/manage-tasks.md
• prompts/validate-spec-implementation.md
• docs/emoji-context-verification-research.md (new file)

Additional Notes

Context Rot Background

Context rot is the systematic degradation of AI performance as input context length increases, even when tasks remain simple. Key characteristics:

• Silent Failure: Context rot doesn't announce itself with errors - it creeps in silently
• Universal Problem: Affects even models with very long context windows (128K+ tokens)
• Detection Challenge: Models may appear fluent while losing track of critical instructions

Research from Chroma demonstrates that performance degrades as context length increases, and Anthropic found that models struggle with "needle-in-a-haystack" tasks as context grows, even when the information is present.

Verification Technique

The emoji/character verification technique works by:

1. Instruction Embedding: Critical instructions include a specific emoji/character sequence requirement
2. Response Pattern: AI is instructed to always begin responses with the marker
3. Visual Detection: Missing marker = immediate signal that context instructions weren't processed
4. Context Wall Detection: When the marker disappears, it indicates the context window limit has been reached

Why It Works:

• Token efficiency: Emojis are single tokens, adding minimal overhead
• Visual distinctiveness: Easy to spot in terminal/text output
• Pattern recognition: Models reliably follow explicit formatting instructions when they can see them
• Failure detection: Absence of marker immediately signals instruction loss

Design Decision: No Concatenation Instructions

Rationale for excluding concatenation rules:

Each SDD workflow prompt is step-specific and used independently. The prompts are designed to be self-contained for their specific workflow step:

• generate-spec.md → Only uses SDD1️⃣
• generate-task-list-from-spec.md → Only uses SDD2️⃣
• manage-tasks.md → Only uses SDD3️⃣
• validate-spec-implementation.md → Only uses SDD4️⃣

Why concatenation examples were removed:

1. Ambiguity: Showing examples like SDD1️⃣ SDD2️⃣ SDD3️⃣ SDD4️⃣ could confuse the AI into thinking it should output all markers, even when only one step is active
2. Unclear Trigger: The phrase "when multiple workflow steps are active" doesn't clearly define when concatenation would apply in practice
3. Simplicity: Each prompt should have a single, clear instruction: use YOUR marker. Simpler instructions are more reliable
4. Self-Contained Design: Each prompt is designed to work independently, so concatenation isn't needed

If concatenation becomes necessary in the future (e.g., for a unified prompt spanning multiple steps), it can be added back with clearer, more specific guidance.

Reliability Assessment

• High Reliability: When marker appears consistently, instructions are likely being processed
• Medium Reliability: When marker is inconsistent, may indicate partial context loss
• Low Reliability: When marker disappears, strong indicator of context rot or instruction loss

Note: Presence of marker doesn't guarantee all instructions were followed correctly, but absence is a clear signal of instruction loss.

• Breaking Changes: None
• Performance Implications: Minimal overhead (~1-2 tokens per response)
• Security Considerations: None - markers are visual verification only
• Testing Strategy: Manual verification that markers appear in AI responses
• Dependencies: None added
• Configuration Changes: None required
• Known Limitations: Marker presence doesn't guarantee all instructions were followed, but absence indicates instruction loss
• Related Issues: N/A

Review Checklist

• Code follows project style guidelines
• Self-review completed
• Tests added/updated for new functionality (N/A - prompt changes)
• Documentation updated (research doc added)
• No breaking changes
• Performance impact considered (minimal - 1-2 tokens)
• Security implications reviewed (none)
• Dependencies reviewed and approved (none added)

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Documentation

  • Added a research article on emoji-based context verification and expanded README/site guidance with examples and best practices; FAQ content about verification was added (duplicated in one page).

• Chores

  • Updated prompt guides to require responses to begin with the new context-verification emoji markers (SDD1️⃣–SDD4️⃣) and documented the exact prefix formatting.

_{✏️ Tip: You can customize this high-level summary in your review settings.}

[coderabbitai]

Walkthrough

Adds documentation and site content describing an emoji-based context verification technique and inserts "Context Marker" sections into four prompt files requiring replies to begin with sequential markers SDD1️⃣–SDD4️⃣. No public API or runtime code changes.

Changes

Cohort / File(s)	Change Summary
Research documentation docs/emoji-context-verification-research.md	New research document describing an emoji/character context verification method: origin, mechanism, implementation example, reliability/limitations, best practices, multi-step workflow integration, related techniques, sources, and recommendation.
Prompt context verification markers prompts/generate-spec.md, prompts/generate-task-list-from-spec.md, prompts/manage-tasks.md, prompts/validate-spec-implementation.md	Each prompt file gained a "Context Marker/Context Verification Marker" section instructing replies to ALWAYS begin with all active emoji markers in introduction order, using format <marker1><marker2><marker3>\n<response>, and specifying sequential markers (SDD1️⃣–SDD4️⃣) per prompt.
Docs/site content updates README.md, docs/common-questions.html, docs/index.html	Added explanatory content about the verification markers (SDD1️⃣–SDD4️⃣) across README and site pages; docs/common-questions.html contains a duplicated insertion of the new section. Minor typographic/wrapping and SVG attribute adjustments in docs/index.html.

Sequence Diagram(s)

sequenceDiagram
    autonumber
    participant Author as Prompt/Doc Author
    participant User as User
    participant Assistant as Assistant

    rect rgba(120,180,240,0.08)
    note right of Author: Prompts/docs declare verification markers (SDDx)
    Author->>User: Publish spec/prompt with required prefix SDDx
    end

    User->>Assistant: Send request referencing spec
    alt Assistant follows verification marker requirement
        Assistant->>Assistant: Prepend marker SDDx
        Assistant->>User: Response: "SDDx\n<body>"
    else Assistant omits marker / verification fails
        Assistant->>User: Response without marker or with verification-failure note
    end

Loading

Estimated code review effort

🎯 3 (Moderate) | ⏱️ ~20 minutes

• Verify correct sequential SDD markers and consistent wording in the four prompt files.
• Remove duplicated insertion in docs/common-questions.html if unintended.
• Skim docs/emoji-context-verification-research.md for clarity and accidental sensitive content.

Possibly related PRs

• refactor(workflow): comprehensive spec-driven workflow prompt refactoring #26 — Modifies the same prompt files and appears to touch emoji/context marker requirements; likely related.

Suggested reviewers

• RobertKelly

Poem

🐇 I hop through specs with glee,
I place my markers, one, two, three,
SDDs to start each line,
Keep the context snug and fine,
Then I nibble tokens merrily.

Pre-merge checks and finishing touches

✅ Passed checks (3 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title check	✅ Passed	Title accurately and concisely describes the main change: adding context verification markers to SDD workflow prompts, which aligns with all modifications in the changeset.
Description check	✅ Passed	Description comprehensively covers all required template sections: Why (context rot problem), What Changed (detailed file-by-file changes), and Additional Notes (design rationale, reliability assessment, testing strategy). All major sections are well-populated with relevant information.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.

✨ Finishing touches

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Post copyable unit tests in a comment
• Commit unit tests in branch feat/context-rot-markers

---

📜 Recent review details

Configuration used: CodeRabbit UI

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 6e6dfd3 and 01c1059.

📒 Files selected for processing (8)

• README.md (2 hunks)
• docs/common-questions.html (1 hunks)
• docs/emoji-context-verification-research.md (1 hunks)
• docs/index.html (14 hunks)
• prompts/generate-spec.md (1 hunks)
• prompts/generate-task-list-from-spec.md (1 hunks)
• prompts/manage-tasks.md (1 hunks)
• prompts/validate-spec-implementation.md (1 hunks)

🚧 Files skipped from review as they are similar to previous changes (4)

• docs/emoji-context-verification-research.md
• README.md
• prompts/generate-task-list-from-spec.md
• prompts/generate-spec.md

🔇 Additional comments (10)

prompts/validate-spec-implementation.md (2)

16-22: Marker placement and format are clear.

The "Context Marker" section is well-positioned early in the prompt. However, the instruction "always begin your response with all active emoji markers, in the order they were introduced" assumes context from previous steps (SDD1️⃣, SDD2️⃣, SDD3️⃣) will still be active. This is reasonable for a validation workflow, but consider whether downstream users will understand this convention without reading prior prompts.

---

24-177: Validation workflow structure is intact.

The marker addition doesn't interfere with the existing validation workflow. The prompt remains comprehensive and well-organized.

prompts/manage-tasks.md (1)

15-21: Marker format is consistent with other prompts.

The "Context Marker" section follows the same pattern and phrasing as other SDD prompts. By step 3 (implementation), markers from steps 1–2 would typically be active, making the "all active markers" instruction meaningful.

docs/index.html (5)

27-37: Hero section messaging is clearer and more concise.

The rephrasing emphasizes the lightweight, transparent, and tool-agnostic nature of the approach. The messaging is more compelling and immediately conveys the core value proposition.

---

51-68: Scope examples are more concrete and helpful.

The reworded examples make it clearer what qualifies as "too large," "too small," and "just right," helping users self-assess before using the workflow. The emphasis on the "Just Right" category is appropriate.

---

75-139: SVG and link formatting is consistent across all four steps.

The reformatted SVGs and link syntax improvements make the code more maintainable and consistent. No visual or functional changes.

---

237-237: Context verification is now integrated into the benefits and workflow.

Line 237 adds context verification markers to the key benefits list, making it visible to all users. Lines 251–261 introduce a new "Built-in Context Verification" subsection that briefly explains the purpose and links to deeper documentation in common-questions.html. This two-level approach (brief introduction + link for details) is user-friendly.

Also applies to: 251-261

---

276-365: Remaining sections are well-structured with improved messaging.

The "From Reactive Art" and audit trail sections maintain their important conceptual content while benefiting from clearer phrasing. SVG formatting is consistent throughout.

docs/common-questions.html (2)

326-328: I'll help you verify the research citations and speaker attribution mentioned in the review comment. Let me start by examining the actual file content and then searching for verification of these claims.
<function_calls>

cat -n docs/common-questions.html | sed -n '320,390p'

</function_calls>

Let me also search for the research citations and speaker information:
<function_calls>

Chroma Anthropic context rot AI performance degradation research

</function_calls>

<function_calls>

Lada Kesseler AI Native Dev Con Fall 2025

</function_calls>

<function_calls>

"Lada Kesseler" AI developer conference 2025

</function_calls>

---

306-388: Original review comment contains incorrect information—no duplicate section exists.

The verification confirms that the "Context Verification Question" section (id="why-do-ai-responses-start-with-emoji-markers") appears exactly once in the file at line 307. The AI summary's claim of duplication is unfounded. The section is well-structured, uses appropriate HTML semantics consistent with existing patterns, and the hyperlink to the research documentation is properly formatted with correct target attributes.

The code changes are correct and require no modifications.

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