# ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English

39 Hacker News commenters recommended ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English and 12 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** People recommend it as a restricted writing style for AI assistants, giving clearer, less verbose replies. Critics say its limited vocabulary can make technical terms vague and that it uses many tokens.

## Why people recommend it

- Reduces verbosity and AI-sloppy output (4 comments): "Just this one line in AGENTS.md has given better results to reduce if not eliminate verbosity and grandeur." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49412079)) "The generated output is more tolerable to read, and is less confusing." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49116621)) "I hate the long and verbose do strings or docs LLMs spit out." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49115956))
- Clear, easy-to-understand writing (3 comments): "It's a very clear and understandable way of writing that puts priority on clarity." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49251206)) "sentences that are clear and explanatory, easier to double-check" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49156022)) "This prevents models from speaking in incomprehensible language." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49290866))
- Quick to add to prompts (4 comments): "I found that just mentioning ASD-STE100 can get you 72% of the way there" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49161230)) "just mentioning ASD-STE100 spec in certain prompts makes them useful" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49117411)) "Just tell it to exclusively write briefly and in ASD-STE100." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49436590))
- Keeps code reviews and cruft manageable (2 comments): "I've had to setup enforcement + templates (use ASD-STE100) to keep the cruft down." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49304680)) "ASD-STE100 makes automated code reviews tolerable." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49413980))

## What people warn about

- Vague wording replaces precise terms (2 comments): "ASD-STE100 can be counterproductive since its vocabulary is restricted and it often replace accurate technical terms with simple but vague phrases." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49384585)) "STE encourages simplification and tons of repetition of words that is discouraged by college professors." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49117272))
- Gains are small or inconsistent (2 comments): "Overall a significant quality increase in my opinion, but nothing earth shattering" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49119780)) "it helped a bit, but it's still too verbose for my taste" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49296949))
- Built for aircraft manuals, poor for code (2 comments): "It's designed for aircraft maintenance manuals, not software - the two don't share the same vocabulary" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50002385)) "it actually isn't a good fit for code" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49070566))
- Burns tokens and bloats context (4 comments): "STE100 is good for specs and explanations but it works best with a glossary or terms. will burn tokens." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49412795)) "asking Claude to write a skill encoding ASD-STE100 after seeing it pop-up in your social feed is not doing much at all" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49116652)) "the skill is redundant and only pollutes your context window" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49124656))

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English", https://hackerapproved.com/p/asd-ste100-simplified-technical-english/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).