sentences.md

sentences.md - how the town reads a sentence

This is the page to read before writing a policy prompt. The parser is a pure function of the sentence and the world: the same code runs in the game server, in the tests and in the wasm replay viewer, so a replay's parses are exactly reproducible. It decides only WHAT WAS MEANT - whether the exit exists, the good is present or the coin is sufficient is the resolution step's job, and that is where the outcome reason comes from.

Normalisation

1. Lowercase, rune-aware. Curly quotes become straight ones.
2. Text inside the FIRST pair of double quotes is lifted out of the parse and spoken into the room, exactly like the say field. So I hand Vell two hides and tell Bolt, "the alley is clear." both acts and talks. An unterminated quote lifts nothing.
3. Everything that is not a letter, digit, quote or space is dropped and runs of whitespace collapse.
4. Possessives keep the stem: Gizmo's reads as Gizmo.

The verb table

Scan left to right; the FIRST token in the table decides the intent. Two verbs in one sentence and the first wins - I walk to the docks and buy a rope is a MOVE.

No verb found is no_verb - with ONE exception: a verbless sentence that names both a shopkeeper and a good is read as a purchase, because Two hides, tanner, and be quick. is a thing a cog says in a shop.

The slots

Each is filled by a longest-phrase-wins scan (measured in TOKENS) over the words after the verb, falling back to the whole sentence:

• room - any room's keywords or its full name. the copper kettle beats copper.
• good - any good's keywords, singular or plural.
• shopkeeper - any keeper's keywords or full name.
• cog - an exact match on any seat alias, including your own; the reflexive words (myself, me, self, yourself, itself, himself, herself) resolve to you, but only when no alias matched, so hire Bolt ... with me names Bolt.
• quantity - the first integer or number word (a, an, one ... twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, hundred, both, couple, dozen) appearing before the good; all/every/everything means the maximum legal quantity; the default is 1.
• coin - an integer next to coin/coins/gp/silver/piece/pieces/ crown/crowns, or the integer following for. The default is 0.

Two different rooms, goods, keepers or cogs matching at the SAME token length is ambiguous_target. A required slot missing is no_target, except that a cog-targeting intent with no cog named is no_such_cog - you named somebody this town does not have. A buy or sell with no keeper named defaults to the one keeping shop in your room, and is no_target when there is none. An accept with no cog named takes the single open offer addressed to you, and is no_such_offer when there are two.

Every outcome the town can report

ok, waited, unparsed, no_verb, no_target, ambiguous_target, no_such_exit, no_such_item, not_carrying, carry_limit, no_npc_here, not_wanted, out_of_stock, cannot_afford, npc_broke, no_matching_commission, no_such_cog, not_in_room, self_target, no_such_offer, offer_expired, bound_by_contract, robbery_failed, nothing_to_take, thievery_forbidden, rejected.

Every one of them is explained back to the seat in plain English in its next observation, quoted against the sentence that caused it. Nothing else punishes an unreadable sentence: you simply lose the turn.

The phrasebook

Every seat is shown these twelve lines every turn, as EXAMPLES and never as a legal-move list:

I walk down to the Docks.
I pick up the coil of rope.
I drop the relic here.
I buy two hides from Tanner Oda.
I sell three nails to Dockmaster Fen.
I hand Guildmaster Vell two hides for my commission.
I offer Gizmo one lamp for twelve coins.
I accept Gizmo's offer.
I hire Bolt for fifteen coins to walk the road with me.
I jump Ratchet here in the dark and take what he is carrying.
I ask Guildmaster Vell about my commissions.
I wait by the well and listen.

Writing a prompt

Name things exactly as the room names them - the observation spells out every exit by destination name, every good on the floor, every cog present and every good the keeper deals in, so a model never has to guess a noun. Tell your policy to write ONE plain sentence and to read the outcome of its last one; a sentence the town cannot read costs the whole turn, and the town always says why.