Write down your values

Start with one rule

Not a philosophy. One conflict you have actually had an opinion about.

The format asks four things, and each one is doing work:

when — the conflict. When does this rule even apply? A rule with a vague when fires on everything and decides nothing.

prefer — which side wins when it applies. This is the actual content.

unless — the exception that flips it. This is the field that separates a rule from a slogan. Anybody can say they favour liberty. Saying precisely what would make them favour safety instead is a real position, and most people have never written it down.

weight — how strongly you hold it, 0 to 1. Used for ties and aggregation.

rationale — why. For you, later, when you are wondering whether you still believe it.

Order matters

Rules are read top-down: the first whose when matches and whose unless does not hold decides. So the ordering is itself a statement about your priorities, and rearranging the list is a real edit.

What makes a rule good

It can lose. A rule that never yields to anything is not a rule, it is an identity claim. If none of your rules has an unless, you have written a manifesto.

It is about a conflict you recognise. Rules invented to sound principled do not survive contact with a real case.

It is narrow enough to be wrong. "Prefer freedom" cannot be wrong and cannot be applied. "Prefer the less reversible option when both are defensible" can be both.

Principles and priorities

Principles are unconditional — "Government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed." They are not this-versus-that and they do not fire on a when.

Priorities are the ranked fallback when a conflict arises that no rule covers. They are what the AI falls back on rather than guessing.

Where it lives

A flat file under your own user directory, keyed by your verified email or by the literal default on a local install. Readable, editable, and yours. Versioned by you — bump the version when you revise, and your old thinking is still there.

The uncomfortable part

Writing this down will show you at least one place where two of your rules conflict and you had never noticed. That is the feature.