Read redacted agent handoffs

A handoff says an opening may change, but the condition after "if" is masked. Nearby, another sentence says the title should stay. The missing condition leaves the opening undecided. It does not, by itself, erase the visible instruction about the title.

The invented handoffs in this article belong to fictional Jane Doe. An AI agent has written them for her, and she needs to act without inventing the withheld words. The .md format explanation introduces the file type.

Locate the omissions before following the prose

Jane Doe begins with this invented handoff:

The opening may change if [REDACTED]. Keep the title as written. The closing paragraph stays because [REMOVED].

There are two marked omissions. One follows "if" in the opening sentence. The other follows "because" in the closing sentence. Read both markers as withheld text, with no assumed wording behind them.

The marker labels identify absences; their size does not tell Jane Doe how much was taken out. Nor does a label explain whether a hidden passage contains one detail or several. She can write "condition withheld" beside the opening and "explanation withheld" beside the closing, based on the visible words around each gap.

A handoff might instead say "passage omitted" between paragraphs. Include that absence in your reading too. If text merely seems abrupt without an explicit mark, ask whether anything was omitted. Abrupt prose alone does not establish a redaction.

These passages use short quoted lines. Putting text in Markdown code blocks changes only how the quoted lines look; it does not change what the mask hides.

Follow the dependence past the masked line

The opening sentence allows a change only under a condition Jane Doe cannot read. Leave the change undecided. Even if the surrounding discussion favors a new opening, that preference does not tell her whether the withheld condition is satisfied.

A later sentence could extend the same dependence:

With that condition satisfied, use the revised opening throughout the draft.

The second sentence has no mask of its own. It still depends on the hidden condition. Jane Doe cannot adopt the revised opening throughout merely because this later instruction is fully visible.

Read onward for statements that rely on the affected choice. Words such as "therefore" or "on that basis" can connect a later action to an earlier gap. Follow a connection when the visible wording establishes it. A shared paragraph does not make every sentence dependent, and a new paragraph does not make the dependence disappear.

Here, both changing the opening and using the revision throughout remain unresolved. Naming both affected actions keeps the later sentence from silently turning an unknown condition into an established one.

Preserve the independent statement at its stated scope

Return to "Keep the title as written." That sentence names an action without invoking the hidden condition. Jane Doe can retain that instruction as the handoff's visible position on the title.

This says nothing about whether the whole draft is suitable for use. It also does not establish that every other instruction is independent. Keep the title statement narrow: the title stays as written according to the visible handoff.

The closing sentence needs a different reading. "The closing paragraph stays because [REMOVED]" states a choice while withholding its explanation. Jane Doe can report that the handoff says to retain the closing paragraph. She cannot report why it says so, or use that hidden explanation to justify another edit.

If she needs only to preserve that paragraph, the visible instruction may be enough. If she needs to decide whether the same explanation applies elsewhere, the missing detail matters. Dependence belongs to the particular use she intends, rather than to the handoff as one indivisible whole.

Seek the detail that would settle your action

Jane Doe wants to know whether she may change the opening. Her question can stay narrow: "Is the withheld condition for changing the opening satisfied for this draft? I do not need its hidden wording."

Suppose the agent answers:

The condition for changing the opening is not satisfied for this draft. Leave the opening unchanged.

That new statement settles the proposed edit while the original condition remains undisclosed. It does not supply the closing paragraph's explanation. Keep those absences separate rather than treating one clarification as an answer about the entire handoff.

Another invented passage poses a different problem:

Leave [REDACTED] unchanged. Shorten the other paragraph.

For this edit, Jane Doe needs to identify the paragraph that stays. A useful question is "Which paragraph should remain unchanged? Name it without repeating the withheld passage." Without that distinction, she cannot choose which paragraph to shorten.

When the agent cannot supply the needed detail, take the same narrow question to the person who provided the handoff. Leave the affected edit pending if the answer still does not establish what to do.

Carry the unknowns into your own account

Jane Doe's reading can now say: "The title stays. The opening remains unchanged after clarification. The handoff retains the closing paragraph, but its explanation is withheld."

That account preserves what she can use and where her knowledge ends. It does not replace the mask with a likely phrase or turn an undisclosed explanation into support for more changes.

Keep your own account distinct from the received handoff. Naming Markdown files concerns how to distinguish those files; choose a name that separates your reading from the text you received.

Stop when the next intended action has visible support or a clear unresolved dependency. A handoff can remain partly undisclosed while still supporting a limited action. Where the needed detail remains hidden, leave that action undecided.

Where Sashmark fits

Remaining in development, Sashmark has a planned desktop purpose: Markdown reading and editing. The app itself contains no AI. Deciding what a masked passage leaves unknown remains your work, with clarification coming from the separate agent or the person who provided the handoff.