Most “be concise” prompts optimize for fewer words. Sometimes they also remove the detail that made the answer useful.
I built Laconian, an open-source Markdown skill for AI agents, around a stricter rule:
Give the shortest complete answer that fully resolves the request.
The order matters. Correctness, safety, requirements, material facts, uncertainty, and clarity come before brevity.
Skill removes greetings, restatement, repetition, unrequested process narration, and decoration—while preserving everything needed for a correct and useful answer.
The entire skill is one Markdown file. No scripts, dependencies, permissions, or network calls.
The repository also includes an open benchmark for comparing Skill with a plain “Answer concisely.” instruction and other baselines. It is still under active development; no public benchmark result is available yet.
The goal is not the shortest answer.
It is the shortest answer that is still complete.
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