# The One-Page Instructions (Chapter 15)

**Use when:** an artifact ships to colleagues. The one-page sheet is the artifact's operator manual, and it must make a stranger self-sufficient: an uninvolved colleague reproduces your result in fifteen minutes from this page, timed. That is the bar.

## The page, four blocks, one side of one sheet

```
WHAT THIS FILE DOES
[One paragraph. The artifact's job, stated for someone who never saw it
before. What it produces, for whom, and what decision it feeds.]

HOW TO RUN IT
[The steps, in order, no skipped knowledge. Where the inputs live, what
to click or run, where the output lands. What it costs to run, if it
costs anything.]

WHAT BREAKS IT
[The failure modes, named. The wrong input, the missing file, the count
that no longer matches. What the artifact does when it breaks, and how
to tell it is lying.]

WHO TO PING
[A name, not a mailbox. The person who answers questions and the one
change requests reach.]
```

## Rules that travel with it

- One page is the format and the test. If the instructions need page two, the artifact needs simplification.
- Hand the sheet and the artifact to an uninvolved colleague and time them. Fifteen minutes is the bar. If they cannot reproduce your result, the artifact is not done, no matter how correct it is.
- The sheet is how a stranger checks whether the file is lying today. What breaks it belongs on the page, because the colleague who hits the break inherits your knowledge instead of your phone number.
- It ships with the change log and the known-good copy, the full four gates: named reviewer, change log, frozen copy, ship/no-ship criteria.

Verify: a stranger reproduced your result in fifteen minutes from the one-page sheet, without you in the room. The file answers the review list, and the reviewer approves because the artifact proves itself, not because anyone trusts anyone.