The Optimize button

One-shot AI pass that takes a verbose prompt draft and rewrites it under Pendraic's five rules. Sits next to the body field on every saved prompt and inside the visual prompt builder.

What it does

Tightens prose; cuts filler, weasel hedges, redundant clauses.
Forces imperative phrasing, every prompt starts with a verb.
Adds an output constraint if missing (“Return only…”).
Pulls scope to match the job, paragraph edits get {{selection}}, whole-book gets {{synopsis_5p}}.
Preserves your variable tokens, never strips a meaningful injection.

What it costs

The optimizer runs on your preferred model, with no PENDRAIC context bundle (it's meta-work on a string, not a generation against your manuscript). Total tokens are typically 2,000-3,000. On Sonnet that's under a penny; on Haiku it's sub-tenth-penny.

What you see

The optimizer returns the rewritten body plus a one-line rationale (e.g. “Cut hedges and added explicit return rule”). You see it side-by-side with your original, plus the char-count delta and the actual call cost. Apply replaces your draft; Discard leaves it untouched.

When to use it

Whenever a prompt feels long. Whenever you copy-pasted from a chat thread. Whenever you wrote it in a hurry and want a second pass before saving. The optimizer is cheap enough to treat as a free editor, just hit it.