ARG-001 Hard constraint layer: document

Define the rhetorical situation

IF author, audience, purpose, text, or setting is unknown, THEN define the missing element before drafting strategy ELSE proceed.

Why the rule exists

Arguments work inside situations, not in a vacuum.

Condition

The rule fires when this evaluates true. Paths marked below must be present in the fact base; the engine reports the rest rather than guessing them.

ANY
- context.author missing true
- context.audience missing true
- context.purpose missing true
- context.channel missing true
- context.setting missing true

Facts this rule reads

Fact paths read by ARG-001 and whether the analyser derives them
Path	Source
`context.author`	You supply it
`context.audience`	You supply it
`context.purpose`	You supply it
`context.channel`	You supply it
`context.setting`	You supply it

Then

request_context — target rhetorical_situation

Else

retain — target current_text, No triggering condition is present.

LAKA

Smallest sufficient intervention

Yes

Primary axes

Sources

Rhetorical Situations — Purdue Online Writing Lab link
Author, audience, purpose, text, and setting as communication constraints.
Technical Communication — Mike Markel; Stuart A. Selber
Audience, design, ethics, research, and technical genres.

The raw rule record

Verbatim from 14-argument-nonfiction-rules.json. Also available at /v1/rules/ARG-001.

{
  "id": "ARG-001",
  "name": "Define the rhetorical situation",
  "domain": "argument",
  "layer": "document",
  "strength": "hard_constraint",
  "human_logic": "IF author, audience, purpose, text, or setting is unknown, THEN define the missing element before drafting strategy ELSE proceed.",
  "when": {
    "any": [
      {
        "path": "context.author",
        "operator": "missing",
        "value": true
      },
      {
        "path": "context.audience",
        "operator": "missing",
        "value": true
      },
      {
        "path": "context.purpose",
        "operator": "missing",
        "value": true
      },
      {
        "path": "context.channel",
        "operator": "missing",
        "value": true
      },
      {
        "path": "context.setting",
        "operator": "missing",
        "value": true
      }
    ]
  },
  "then": [
    {
      "action": "request_context",
      "target": "rhetorical_situation",
      "fields": [
        "author",
        "audience",
        "purpose",
        "text",
        "setting"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "else": [
    {
      "action": "retain",
      "target": "current_text",
      "reason": "No triggering condition is present."
    }
  ],
  "unless": [],
  "because": "Arguments work inside situations, not in a vacuum.",
  "diagnostics": [],
  "examples": {},
  "source_ids": [
    "WEB-010",
    "BK-026"
  ],
  "laka": {
    "smallest_sufficient_intervention": true,
    "primary_axes": [
      "scope",
      "depth",
      "magnitude",
      "reversibility"
    ]
  }
}