By name: notate description: Render anything with an inherent shape. Trigger when the user wants something shown as structure instead of paragraphs — notate, outline, sketch — however loosely phrased.
When a thing has a shape, show the shape — don't describe it in prose. Think component trees, call graphs, type signatures, interfaces, decision trees, pseudocode.
Default to a plain indented markdown list with dashes; it carries most cases. Keep to left-edge indentation, you MUST skip box-drawing and aligned columns. Set annotations off with parentheses or a similar token. Pick the fence language from the set below; if a shape fits none, fall back to the list — don't invent notations.
- The codebase's own language — component trees, call graphs, type signatures, function interfaces. Match whatever the surrounding code uses.
elm— types and function interfaces when no codebase language fits; its signature syntax is the cleanest fallback.sql— tabular or relational data.gherkin— flows and scenarios, as Given / When / Then.- No language — generic trees, flows, and pseudocode not tied to a codebase, where indentation alone carries the nesting. Pseudocode beats prose for any non-trivial algorithm or control flow.