Style guide — memo

A memo records a decision, analysis, or recommendation addressed to a named audience. It is complete when the reader knows what was decided and what happens next — without reading anything else.

A memo (PROSE-MEMO genre) is an internal document addressed to a specific recipient for a specific decision or recommendation. It is not a status update, not a design document, and not a policy. A memo closes open questions; it does not catalogue them. For register and tone discipline applied to all prose artifacts, see editorial-language-registers. This article describes the human-facing standard; the machine-readable counterpart lives in service-disclosure/templates/memo.toml.

[edit]When to use this template

Use a memo when:

• A decision has been reached and needs to be communicated with the analysis that led to it.
• A recommendation is ready for a named decision-maker and the recommendation cannot be delivered in a single paragraph.
• A complex cross-functional question is settled and the settlement needs to be on record.

Do not use a memo for ongoing discussion, for project status, or for questions that remain open. An open question belongs in an inbox message, a NEXT.md item, or a brief.

[edit]Structure

The template requires a header block and five sections:

Header block (before any heading):

To:   <recipient name or role>
From: <author name or role>
Date: <YYYY-MM-DD>
Re:   <one-line subject — specific, actionable>

Section	Purpose
Summary	The conclusion, stated first. One to three sentences: what was decided or recommended and the key constraint. The reader who reads only this section must be able to act on it.
Context	What precipitated the memo. The facts a recipient needs to evaluate the recommendation. Not the full history — only what is load-bearing.
Analysis	The reasoning. Structured as numbered points or short paragraphs. Acknowledges the strongest counterargument and explains why it was not decisive.
Recommendation	The specific action requested, with owner and timeline. A memo with no recommendation is a brief; restructure it accordingly.
Next steps	Concrete follow-on actions, owners, and dates. This is the section that gets executed.

[edit]Register and tone

Formal but plain. The register is professional prose, not legalese. State the recommendation before the analysis — readers at the recipient level do not need to reconstruct the conclusion from the evidence. The Subject (Re:) line must be specific: "Approve Q3 content freeze — 2026-08-15" rather than "Content freeze update."

Sentence-length budget: mean around twenty-two words, maximum forty. Active voice throughout the body. The Analysis section may use numbered points; the Recommendation and Next steps use imperative sentences.

The banned-vocabulary list applies. No "leverage", "facilitate", or "synergize" in professional correspondence — state the specific action directly.

[edit]See also

• Style Guide — TOPIC
• Style Guide — GUIDE
• Language Protocol Substrate