Reading budgets

how long a page may be

A wiki has three limits, counted in words: one for a page, one for an intent, and one for the goals page that collects every intent.[1] A project can set its own under [budget] in wiki.toml, and each must be a positive whole number.[2]

Counting

A page is counted from its markdown, leaving out its references and code blocks, so citing costs nothing and a sample to copy, such as a prompt, costs nothing either.[3] Words are split on spaces, so a table's borders count as words too.[3]

The goals page is not held to the page limit.[4] What it collects is measured against the goals limit instead.[4]

Enforcement

A page over its limit is listed by the check.[5] An intent over its limit stops the build before anything else is checked.[6] Every build and every check prints each page's word count.[7]

Calibration

Until [budget] in wiki.toml sets calibrated = true, every build and check warns that the numbers are a guess that happens to be enforced.[8] What a project's readers will read is unknown until it is measured.[8]

Categories: Refusals
Last updated 14 September 2026Last audited never182 wordsabout 1 minute to read8 sources cited0 claims with no source