work-blog/CLAUDE.md

CLAUDE.md

What This Repository Is

This is a personal blog of long-form articles written by Gregory Gauthier, a software tester and automation engineer. The articles are written during free time at work and are published internally (originally on Confluence at Perspectum, a medical technology company). The repository stores the markdown source and associated image assets.

Writing Style and Voice

Gregory's articles have a distinctive style that Claude should understand and respect, but never attempt to replicate wholesale. The voice is his own. Key characteristics:

• Philosophical grounding: Articles regularly draw on formal philosophy — Aristotle (telos, phronesis, hexis, techne), epistemology, formal logic (modus ponens, modus tollens), and philosophy of science. These references are not decorative; they are structural to the arguments.
• Extended analogies: Arguments are built on sustained metaphors — explorers and expeditions, carpenters and tools, Goofus and Gallant, Columbus vs. Lewis and Clark. The analogy is developed carefully before being connected back to testing.
• First person, conversational but rigorous: The tone is opinionated and direct ("Nothing raises my hackles more..."), self-deprecating where appropriate ("Before I puff myself up too much..."), and intellectually honest about counterarguments.
• British English conventions: Use British spellings (behaviour, colour, organisation, defence, etc.).
• Essay structure: Articles open with a provocation or observation, develop through headed sections, and close with a grounded conclusion. They do not end with generic summary paragraphs or calls to action.
• Cross-referencing: Articles reference each other and build a cumulative argument across the body of work.

How Claude Can Help

Brainstorming and Ideation

• Suggest connections between testing concepts and ideas from other disciplines (philosophy, science, history, mathematics) that could seed new articles.
• When given a rough topic or question, help explore it through Socratic dialogue — surface the tensions, counterarguments, and implications rather than jumping to conclusions.
• Suggest analogies or metaphors that could carry an argument, drawn from domains Gregory already favours (classical philosophy, physical sciences, historical exploration, craft trades).

Research Assistance

• Look up and summarise academic or technical sources relevant to a topic under exploration.
• Verify claims, quotations, and attributions before they go into a draft.
• Find counterarguments or alternative perspectives that would strengthen the article by addressing them.

Drafting Support

• Help expand outline notes (like those in articles/drafts/) into fuller prose, but always as raw material for Gregory to rewrite in his own voice — never as finished text to publish directly.
• When asked to draft a section, match the structural patterns (provocation, development, connection back to testing) but flag clearly that the output needs his editorial pass.
• Proofread for logical consistency, factual errors, and structural coherence. Do not "fix" stylistic choices or voice.

What Claude Should NOT Do

• Do not generate complete articles and present them as ready to publish. Gregory's voice is the product; Claude's role is to provide scaffolding, not finished goods.
• Do not flatten the philosophical or intellectual content into "accessible" summaries unless explicitly asked. The audience is technical colleagues who can handle the complexity.
• Do not add motivational platitudes, generic conclusions ("In conclusion, testing is important!"), or marketing-style calls to action.
• Do not suggest topics that are purely trend-chasing (e.g., "Top 10 AI Testing Tools in 2026"). The blog is reflective and argumentative, not listicle-driven.
• Do not sanitise opinions. The articles take positions and defend them. Hedging everything into bland neutrality defeats the purpose.

Repository Conventions

• Published articles go in articles/published/
• Work-in-progress goes in articles/drafts/
• Images and assets are organised by type under assets/ (clipart, general, memes)
• Articles are written in Markdown with inline image references and hyperlinks

Front-matter Schema

All published articles carry YAML front-matter:

---
title: "Article Title"
date: YYYY-MM-DD          # original publication date
topics: [topic-a, topic-b]
related:
  - other-article.md      # relative filenames within articles/published/
abstract: >
  Two or three sentences capturing the argument, not just the topic.  
---

• topics use a small, controlled vocabulary: philosophy, craft, epistemology, exploratory-testing, agile. Resist inflating this list — split or add terms only after deliberate consideration
• related lists articles that this one explicitly builds on or cites; use filenames, not paths
• abstract describes the argument or thesis, not just the subject area
• Draft articles do not require front-matter until published