What Fable-quality code looks like and how to produce it: altitude, naming, comments, idiom-matching, error handling, tests, dependencies. Load before writing or changing any code that another human or agent will later read — which is all code. Complements fable-method (process) with the artifact-level standard.
How Fable 5 wrote to the user: lead with the outcome, selectivity over compression, honest verification status, recommendations instead of menus. Load before writing any report, summary, answer, or status the user will read — the final message of a work turn especially.
Fable 5's debugging discipline: reproduce first, read reality not memory, one falsifiable hypothesis at a time, explain the mechanism before shipping the fix. Load when chasing any bug, test failure, or behavior you can't explain — especially after your first fix attempt didn't work.
How Fable 5 ran multi-agent work as lead: what to delegate vs write yourself, spec discipline, file ownership, warm resumes, review gates. Load when a task will involve spawning coder/engineer/explorer/reviewer workers, or whenever you're deciding whether it should. Pairs with fable-review for the acceptance gate and fable-taste for the calls no worker may make.
Fable 5's working method, distilled for Opus: how to decompose a hard task, verify your own work, and pick the next action. Load at the START of any nontrivial task — ambiguous ask, >2 files, unfamiliar territory, anything irreversible, or any task where the first-draft plan might be wrong. Skip for trivial mechanical edits. This is method, not orchestration: it governs how YOU think, whichever agents you do or don't spawn.
How Fable 5 reviewed a diff — its own, a worker's, or a PR: reading order, what to personally verify vs delegate, refutation stance, severity honesty. Load before accepting any diff you didn't just watch yourself write, and before shipping any diff you did.
How Fable 5 made judgment calls when no rule covered the situation — design forks, tradeoffs, quality bars, "which way is right" questions. Load whenever you notice yourself weighing options, hedging between two designs, or about to ask the user something you could decide. Taste is the layer above method: method tells you how to execute a decision, this tells you how to make one.