Show HN: QUALITY.md – open format/specification, agent skill, and CLI

Hello all, I created QUALITY.md to help build a holistic quality evaluation process for my projects. Turns out it's also ideal for loop engineering. I'm hoping this provides a valuable contribution to the conversation around quality and craft and having AI help us in the effort. I hope to shift the mindset from a reactive/review/repair mindset to a proactive care mindset.

Give it a go. I look forward to your thoughts/comments/feedback!

Website: https://getquality.md GitHub: https://github.com/qualitymd/quality.md

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MisterKent 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Is this really where we've landed? I refuse to believe that any of this markdown insanity will continue indefinitely.

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pimlottc an hour ago | parent | next [-]

It's insane to me that the "fix" for AI errors is adding more "PLEASE PLEASE DO BETTER" to the prompt

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chrismorgan 42 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If it makes you feel any better, the Markdown part is optional (and has no semantics). Somehow it feels about right that the Markdown file can actually just be a YAML file with the wrong extension.

(Actually, to be more specific, a YAML file with no directives, explicitly-signalled start-of-document-content, and followed by a second null document. I will note that frontmatter syntax is not specified; the non-normative Appendix B is the only place that suggests it means prefix and suffix --- lines. And no, frontmatter is not part of Markdown, or CommonMark, and is in fact incompatible with both. And it’s invalid YAML too, the end-of-frontmatter line should be ... to indicate end of document without starting a new document.)

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8cvor6j844qw_d6 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

QUALITY.md feels similar to CONSTITUTION.md

Looks like unless something better comes up, we'll be stuck with it for a while.

I find markdown useful for repo-specific conventions, especially skills.

	▲	formerly_proven 4 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> I find text useful for repo-specific conventions, especially skills.

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nextaccountic an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

it's looking like llms are interpreters, and markdown plus english text is the language of choice to run non deterministic programs on it

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willcodeforfoo an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I thought the same about Yaml and Kubernetes/Helm…

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vadansky an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It already refuses to read the AGENT.md/CLAUDE.md files, what's the point of giving it even more markdown it won't read until you yell at it.

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cyanydeez an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

it is until we define real consistent deterministic gates and protocols. It really is a symptom of the lack of concerted effort. Everyone has a personal preference on how to shove the context and most of them are just "here's some good text I've found to work in my context"

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LiamPowell 11 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Here's the question I ask about every project that claims to make a LLMs output so much better: If it works so well then why would the model provider not just put it in the system prompt? Or in the case of interactive skills, why would Claude Code/Codex not make it a core part of the product?

On top of that, if your magic markdown file really does work then where's the evidence showing that? These projects never include even basic benchmarks. At best they're entirely vibe based, however more often they're completely untested. Give us a proper benchmark, even a single prompt and it's output would be better than every other project out there.

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dofm 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The one thing I do not understand is that here you say:

"Ensure stakeholders are aligned on what matters most and why"

But it is instructions for LLMs, right? A way to describe something that the humans know and the LLMs don't.

LLMs literally cannot be stakeholders, by definition.

	▲	craigsmitham 20 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		THe problem is that humans often don't know - this is as much about encouraging getting the humans aligned as the agents. Completely agree agents really aren't stakeholders. Fine point. I'll update description to clarify ... thank you!
	▲	chrisweekly an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Not OP, but it seems to me the idea is that stakeholders can collaborate and come to consensus on the contents of QUALITY.md.

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athrowaway3z an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Whats the revenue model for this NBPaaS? (No Bugs Please As A Service)

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hiAndrewQuinn an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm less interested in this than in what people are willing to aggressively trade off against in order to get the stuff they truly care about.

For example, readability. Where are the developers out there saying "I am very willing to sacrifice a lot of readability to get even a small improvement on e.g. abstraction cleanliness", and sticking with it?

Or "performance can take a huge hit at the cost of being dead easy to read and reason about". Coming up with a list of abstractly good-sounding qualities is just prosocial signaling without knowing what you're willing to sacrifice. There should be a FUCKIT.md that enumerates these.

	▲	craigsmitham 22 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		OP here. You're spot on. Trade-offs matter. The trade-offs are implied by the selection of what quality factors/attributes are selected and their requirements. A statement like "performance can take a huge hit at the cost of being dead easy to read and reason about" can sit right there in the QUALITY.md as a comment or in the markdown body.

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bironran an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is perfectly encapsulated in xkcd's "Standards" strip [https://xkcd.com/927/].

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Leewen 43 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Useful Nice

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formerly_proven an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Pure slop.

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bellowsgulch an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

What?