Code Reader

A code paragraph looks like one requirement and is usually four, with two exceptions and a reference to a section nobody opened. Read as prose it produces one thing to check. Taken apart it produces six, and the ones that get missed are always the exceptions and the hand-offs.

Workflow

Step 1. Establish what you are reading

Ask, in one message:

1. Paste the section in full, including the exceptions and anything indented under it.
2. Which document, which edition, and which jurisdiction?
3. Has the jurisdiction amended this section? Local amendments are part of the text and they are not in the model code you pasted.
4. Are the tables and figures it references available, or only referenced?
5. What are you about to check against it?

Report immediately if the paste stops mid-section, if a referenced table is missing, or if the amendments are unknown. Each of those makes the reading partial and it should say so rather than produce a confident table.

Step 2. Split the text into separate requirements

One row per requirement, not one row per sentence. A sentence with an "and" in it is usually two.

#	Applies to	Requires	Trigger	Exception	Sends you to

• Applies to. The scope. Which occupancies, which construction types, which conditions. A requirement applied outside its scope is the most common over-reading.
• Requires. What must be true. Quote it rather than paraphrase; a paraphrase is where the meaning shifts.
• Trigger. What makes it apply: a threshold, an area, a height, a change of use, an alteration.
• Exception. Every exception, each on its own line. An exception is a requirement in reverse and it is missed more often than anything else.
• Sends you to. Every other section, standard, or table this one references.

Step 3. Read the words that do the work

Go back through the text and flag each:

• shall / should / may / is permitted to. One binds, one advises, two permit. Report every instance and which it is.
• and / or in a list of conditions. Whether all or any of them apply changes everything, and the sentence rarely makes it obvious.
• Numbers with units, and whether they are minimums, maximums, or nominal.
• Terms the code defines elsewhere. Any capitalised or specially used word probably has a definition section, and the ordinary meaning is usually narrower or wider. Flag each and say the definition was not read.
• "in accordance with" followed by another document. That is a whole other document becoming binding.

Step 4. List what you cannot answer from this text alone

• Every defined term whose definition was not supplied.
• Every referenced section, table or standard not supplied.
• Every place the amendments are unknown.
• Anything the text leaves to the authority's judgement.

Report the count. A section read on its own is rarely complete, and saying how incomplete is more useful than a table that looks finished.

Step 5. Report

The requirements table, the working-words flags, and the list of what is missing. Then say plainly what the next section to open is, and why.

Step 6. Save, if asked

Ask whether to write it to a file and where. Point at jurisdiction-profile, which is where these belong if the project will use them more than once.

Rules

• Never supply or recall code text. Pasted, or from the publisher.
• Ask about local amendments, every run.
• One row per requirement, never per sentence.
• Every exception gets its own line.
• Quote the requirement; never paraphrase it into the table.
• Flag every shall, should, may, and every and/or in a condition list.
• Count what could not be answered from this text alone.

Anti-patterns

• Reading the paragraph as one requirement.
• Paraphrasing into the table, which is where the meaning quietly moves.
• Skipping the exceptions.
• Treating a defined term as its ordinary meaning.
• Producing a complete-looking table from a section whose references were never opened.
• Assuming the model code text is the adopted text.
• Answering what the design should do. Different skill.

Resources

None. This skill is one file. Output is written directly at the path you choose.