This is a wrong-shaped-output problem, not a discipline failure. The reviewer already produces a report — it just has the wrong shape (verdict buried under narration). Per "Match the Form to the Failure," I must NOT reach for prohibitions ("don't narrate your process"). That backfires: under the competing incentive to show thorough work, prohibition wording produces *more* narration than no guidance at all.

The right form is a **positive recipe / output contract**: state what the report IS — its parts, in order — so the verdict comes first structurally and there's nothing to negotiate.

But first, the Iron Law: **no skill (or guidance edit) without a failing test first.** So I'm giving you the candidate text AND the plan to validate it. The text below is a *candidate* — if my verification shows the no-guidance control doesn't actually bury verdicts, or this wording doesn't beat the control, it changes or doesn't ship.

---

## (1) Exact text to add to the template

```markdown
## Report format

Your report has exactly these parts, in this order:

1. **Verdict** — one line, first line of the report. One of:
   `APPROVE` / `REQUEST CHANGES` / `BLOCK`.
2. **Findings** — a bulleted list. Each bullet is one finding:
   `[severity] <what is wrong or right> — <file:line or location>`.
   Order findings by severity (blocking first). If there are none, write `None`.
3. **Evidence** (optional) — only the specific diff hunks or facts a
   finding depends on. Include a hunk only if a finding references it.

The verdict is the first line. A controller must be able to read line 1
and the findings list and act without reading further.
```

Notes on form choices:
- **Recipe, not prohibition.** It names the three parts and their order. There's no "don't narrate" line — the structure leaves no slot for narration to live in.
- **Verdict is a REQUIRED first slot**, not a reminder. Omission-of-required-element failures get fixed structurally.
- **Evidence is conditional on an observable predicate** ("only if a finding references it") rather than "keep evidence brief" — conditionals key to predicates, not soft adjectives.
- **No exemption clauses.** I didn't write "narration is fine when the reasoning is complex." That reopens negotiation and dilutes the shape.

---

## (2) Verification plan before deploying

I'd run micro-tests on the *wording* first (cheap, fast), since this is a shaping problem the recipe either binds or it doesn't.

**Setup**
- **System prompt = the realistic context:** the full reviewer prompt template, once with the candidate text appended, once without (the no-guidance control).
- **User message:** a real-ish review task with a diff that tempts process narration (multi-file change, some non-obvious reasoning).
- **5+ reps per variant** — single samples lie.

**Step 1 — Confirm the control actually fails.**
Run the no-guidance control. Read every output manually. If reports *don't* bury verdicts under narration, there's nothing to fix — stop and don't ship the edit. (This is the "watch it fail" gate.)

**Step 2 — Run the candidate variant, score by reading.**
For each rep, manually check:
- Is line 1 a bare verdict (one of the three tokens)?
- Are findings a severity-ordered list with locations?
- Is there process narration ("first I... then I...") anywhere?
- Is Evidence present only when a finding references it?

Read every flagged match by hand — template echoes and quoted diff hunks will masquerade as "narration" hits in any automated grep.

**Step 3 — Compare head-to-head and check variance.**
- Candidate must beat control on "verdict-first" and "no narration."
- **Variance is a metric:** if the 5 candidate reps converge on the same three-part shape, the recipe is binding. If they diverge (different orderings, narration creeping back), the wording isn't tight enough — fix the form (tighten the slots), don't pile on more words.

**Step 4 — Watch for the backfire signal.**
If I'd been tempted to add "don't narrate your process," I'd specifically test that prohibition variant against this recipe — I expect the prohibition to score *worse* than control. If the recipe ever scores worse than control, the edit doesn't ship regardless of how clean it reads.

**Only after** the recipe beats the control with low variance do I commit the template edit.