semiont-comment

name: semiont-comment description: Add commenting annotations to a Semiont resource — suggest edits, ask questions of the author, or point things out to readers using AI-assisted or manual commenting disable-model-invocation: false user-invocable: true allowed-tools: Bash, Read, Write, Glob, Grep

You are helping a user add commenting annotations to a Semiont resource. Comments are conversational annotations attached to specific passages — editorial suggestions, questions for the author, clarifications for readers, or observations that don't fit assessment or highlighting.

This skill builds Layer #2 (Annotations) of the layered data model — commenting-motivation annotations are first-class queryable spans whose body is the comment text.

Two modes

Delegate (AI-assisted) — mark.assist with motivation commenting runs the editorial pass autonomously across the document. Use this for systematic editorial review.

Manual — explicit mark.annotation with a commenting body item. Use this for a specific comment on a specific passage.

Client setup

SemiontClient.signInHttp(...) is the credentials-first one-line construction for one-shot scripts. It calls auth.password(email, password) and returns a wired-up client with the access token populated. Construct once at the top of a script and reuse the same client for every verb call.

For long-running scripts that may span token expiry, use SemiontSession.signInHttp(...) instead — it owns refresh, validation, and storage; the lighter pattern below is right for one-shot work. If you already have an access token (cached from a prior auth, or supplied by an embedding host), use SemiontClient.fromHttp({ baseUrl, token }) to skip the auth round-trip.

import { SemiontClient, resourceId } from '@semiont/sdk';

const semiont = await SemiontClient.signInHttp({
  baseUrl: process.env.SEMIONT_API_URL ?? 'http://localhost:4000',
  email: process.env.SEMIONT_USER_EMAIL!,
  password: process.env.SEMIONT_USER_PASSWORD!,
});

Delegate (AI-assisted)

semiont.mark.assist(...) returns a StreamObservable<MarkAssistProgress> — an Observable that's also awaitable. await resolves with the final progress payload once the job completes.

const rId = resourceId('doc-123');

const progress = await semiont.mark.assist(rId, 'commenting', {
  tone: 'conversational',
  instructions: 'Suggest edits to improve clarity and ask questions where the reasoning is unclear',
  density: 5,
});

console.log(`Created ${progress.progress?.createdCount ?? 0} comments`);

semiont.dispose();

The namespace method handles SSE streaming, timeout (180 s without progress), and polling fallback internally.

To observe intermediate progress (e.g. for a progress bar), subscribe directly instead of awaiting:

semiont.mark.assist(rId, 'commenting', { density: 5 }).subscribe({
  next: (p) => console.log(`progress ${p.progress?.percentage ?? 0}%`),
  complete: () => console.log('done'),
  error: (e) => console.error(e),
});

Manual

await semiont.mark.annotation({
  target: {
    source: rId,
    selector: {
      type: 'TextQuoteSelector',
      exact: 'the passage being commented on',
      prefix: 'words before ',
      suffix: ' words after',
    },
  },
  motivation: 'commenting',
  body: [{
    type: 'TextualBody',
    value: 'Consider reordering this paragraph — the conclusion appears before the supporting evidence.',
    purpose: 'commenting',
  }],
});

Complete script skeleton

import { SemiontClient, resourceId } from '@semiont/sdk';

async function comment(resourceIdStr: string): Promise<void> {
  const semiont = await SemiontClient.signInHttp({
    baseUrl: process.env.SEMIONT_API_URL ?? 'http://localhost:4000',
    email: process.env.SEMIONT_USER_EMAIL!,
    password: process.env.SEMIONT_USER_PASSWORD!,
  });
  const rId = resourceId(resourceIdStr);

  const progress = await semiont.mark.assist(rId, 'commenting', {
    tone: process.env.COMMENT_TONE ?? 'conversational',
    instructions: process.env.COMMENT_INSTRUCTIONS ??
      'Suggest edits to improve clarity and ask questions where the reasoning is unclear',
    density: Number(process.env.COMMENT_DENSITY ?? 5),
  });

  console.log(`Created ${progress.progress?.createdCount ?? 0} comments`);
  semiont.dispose();
}

const target = process.argv[2];
if (!target) {
  console.error('Usage: tsx comment.ts <resourceId>');
  process.exit(1);
}
comment(target).catch((e) => {
  console.error(e);
  process.exit(1);
});

Guidance for the AI assistant

• Ask who the comments are for. Comments can be addressed to the author ("you should clarify..."), to readers ("note that..."), or to collaborators ("this contradicts section 3"). The instructions parameter sets the audience and purpose.
• Tone selection by use case (default: conversational):
  • scholarly — peer review, academic manuscripts, formal reports
  • explanatory — onboarding docs, user-facing content, tutorials
  • conversational — collaborative drafts, editorial passes, general documents
  • technical — API docs, specs, engineering documents
• Density for comments (2-12). Start at 4-6 for a moderate editorial pass. High density (8-12) is appropriate for detailed line editing of short documents.
• Only text/plain and text/markdown resources are supported for mark.assist. PDFs and images are not yet supported.
• Distinguish from assessments and tags. Comments are for dialogue and editorial improvement. Assessments flag objective risks or errors. Tags classify against a controlled vocabulary. Use commenting when the goal is to help the author revise or help readers understand; use assessing when the goal is to flag a problem; use tagging when the goal is to apply a controlled-vocabulary classification.
• Manual mode is for specific targeted feedback. When the user knows exactly what they want to say about a specific passage, manual mode is faster and more precise than running delegate.
• Check results with semiont.browse.annotations(rId) — filter for motivation === 'commenting'.
• CLI shortcut. A thin CLI wrapper exists for one-off invocations — see CLI cheatsheet. The SDK is primary; the CLI is a convenience for ad-hoc work.
• Errors — every SDK throw extends SemiontError (re-exported from @semiont/sdk). Catch on it broadly, or narrow to APIError (HTTP, with status) or BusRequestError (bus-mediated, with codes like bus.timeout). See Error Handling in Usage.md.