I’ve been thinking a lot about how to interact with AI when I’m writing in plain text editors (using Markdown), and wanted to come up with a way where I could easily leave comments for the AI or myself to solve after I’ve written the text, so I can keep the writing flow without needing to switch my context to check something.
One example happened in this text where I wrote this: [...] how to interact with AI when I writting in pure text editors {{is this the best way to call text editors without any wysiwyg styling? I'm still using markdown}} (using Markdown), and wanted to come up [...], and later the AI removed the comment and replaced pure text editors with plain text editors.
This idea started with me writing comments for myself in caps lock (e.g. CHECK IF THIS DATE IS CORRECT) or inside [[double brackets]], but the latter could easily look like Markdown, so I decided to use double curly braces because (I guess that) the likelihood of this being used in a text is very small. And recently I asked the AI to treat them as something to be processed, with the goal of having it either ask me about them or solve whatever I wrote there. Here is how it looks in a skill that I created to review my content.
[...]
## Author's notes to you (`{{...}}`)
Anything wrapped in double curly braces is a private note from the author to you, the AI agent, not part of the content. Example: `{{is it university or something else?}}`.
- These notes must **never** appear in the final version. Remove every `{{...}}` marker as part of the review.
- They're usually the author asking for help: resolve an open question, supply missing context, fill in a blank, pick between options, or fix something they're unsure about. Do what the note asks, then delete the marker.
- If a note asks a question you can't answer from the surrounding content (a fact only the author knows, an ambiguous intent, a decision that's really theirs), **don't guess**. Leave that one `{{...}}` in place, and call it out in the summary so the author knows you need input. Ask them directly if it's quick.
- A `{{...}}` note is not a license to rewrite. Make the smallest change that addresses it and keeps the author's voice.
## Process
1. **Read the whole file first**, before editing anything. You need to see the full piece to judge its tone and catch errors that span sentences (tense drift, referents that stop matching, etc.). While reading, note any `{{...}}` author's notes (see the section above) and handle them as part of the pass.
[...]
## Output
[...]
- **Author's notes**: resolved `{{...}}` about X by doing Y; left `{{...}}` about Z in place because I need your input
[...]This is just the first version and I’ll probably improve this in the future, but for now it’s good enough.
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