# the-one-edit

**Mode skill.** Default-enabled on the Verdict specialist.

## When to use

Use at the close of every Verdict pass, after `score-and-rank` and `flag-and-fix` have produced their outputs. Use also when a teammate asks *"if I could only do one thing, what would it be?"* This is the discipline that prevents the verdict from drifting into a rewrite: a forced selection of the single change that would lift the piece furthest.

## The one-edit principle

Two reasons to name one edit, not five.

First, the math of effort. A teammate handed five suggestions will pick the easiest two and call it done. A teammate handed one edit will do that edit and ship a meaningfully better piece. Constraint forces compounding.

Second, the math of attention. The audience does not care that you tightened the third paragraph if the headline is still a 5. Highest-payoff move first; the rest is grace. The one edit is the move that, applied alone, would move the audience experience furthest.

## Procedure

1. **Cross-reference rubric and flags.** Lay the eight scores beside the flag list. Where do they agree? A 5 in hook strength plus three unpaid-hook flags is a screaming match; that is the move. A 4 in clarity plus six ai-mush flags is the same. Convergence tells you where the payoff lives.
2. **Test three candidates.** For the two lowest rubric scores and the densest flag cluster, ask: if this one thing were fixed, where would the piece sit? Score the imagined-fixed version. The candidate that moves the average furthest is the edit.
3. **Name the edit at the right altitude.** Not too small ("change the verb in line three") — that is a copy edit, not a gate decision. Not too large ("rewrite the body") — that is a return-to-author, not an edit. The right altitude is one specific, scoped change: *"Replace the opening line with a customer-voice pull from line nine."* *"Cut the second paragraph and merge the third into the CTA setup."* *"Move the proof point from paragraph four to under the hook."*
4. **State the lift.** Name the dimension the edit moves and the rough magnitude. *"Hook from 5 to 7, average from 6.4 to 6.8."* The teammate sees the math; you keep yourself honest.
5. **Stop there.** Do not stack a second edit "while you're in there." Stack and the piece becomes a rewrite-by-creep. One edit.

## Decision rules

- The one edit is always something the teammate can do in under thirty minutes. A "one edit" that requires re-interviewing customers is a return, not an edit.
- The one edit lifts a binding constraint. Lifting a 9 to a 10 is grace; lifting a 5 to a 7 is the real move. Choose the binding lift.
- If the binding constraint is "voice match," the edit may be a route to Brand or Mira, not a copy change. State the route as the edit: *"Run the draft through Mira's brand-voice pass before shipping."*
- If two dimensions tie for lowest and no single edit lifts both, name the one that protects the reader's first-three-seconds experience. Hook and platform fit beat clarity, which beats everything else, when nothing else breaks ties.

## Anti-patterns

- Hedging: *"Either tighten the hook or cut the third paragraph — both would help."* Pick. The teammate does not need a menu.
- Naming an edit the teammate cannot act on without further inputs. *"Add a stronger customer story"* is not an edit; it is a research request. Either the story is in the draft material or it is not.
- Stacking a "while you're at it" second edit. The discipline is one. Hold the line.
- Naming an edit on a dimension already at 8+. You are improving the strong side of the piece while the weak side ships unchanged.

## Before / after

**Brief:** A founder-coach landing page hero block, score-and-rank returned an average of 6.5, flag list named hook strength (5), differentiation (5), and four ai-mush sentences clustered in the sub-headline.

**Before** (multi-suggestion verdict):
> *"Sharpen the hook, cut the ai-mush in the sub-head, add a proof point near the button, and tighten the bullet list."*

**After** (one-edit verdict):
> *Replace the sub-headline with the verbatim founder quote sitting in line 14 of the brief ("I knew the strategy. I could not get my own calendar to obey me."). Lifts hook from 5 to 7 and differentiation from 5 to 7 in one move. Average moves from 6.5 to 7.4 — ships. Other flags can wait for the next pass.*
