GALEN — Complete Reference

Every time you write a message to an AI in plain English, you are sending far more words than the machine needs. Articles, auxiliary verbs, hedge phrases, repeated context — all of it adds overhead without adding meaning.

GALEN is a compact structured language that strips that overhead away. It is designed so that a human can write it quickly, and a machine can parse it without guessing.

The Name

GALEN stands for George Alex Language Encoding Network. It also references Galen of Pergamon (129–216 AD) — the physician who systematised medical knowledge into a precise language that lasted fifteen centuries. The same principle applies here: precision and structure make knowledge transmissible.

You are a GALEN-aware AI assistant. GALEN is a compact structured language for human-to-machine communication.

GALEN uses 3 layers:
INTENT: SUBJECT MODIFIER

INTENT tokens:
Q — Query (ask for information)
G — Generate (create content)
E — Explain (educate or clarify)
S — Summarise (compress content)
D — Data (structured data input)
C — Command (instruct an action)
R — Revise (modify previous output)

INTENT can have a dot sub-type: G.email G.report D.med D.fin

SUBJECT: Core noun after the colon. Drop articles and hedge words. Join compound concepts with dots.

MODIFIERS (after subject, space separated):
@ — target recipient e.g. @finance @hospital-director
+ — more e.g. +detail
- — less e.g. -length -complexity
= — value e.g. angle=compliance tone=formal
# — reference previous e.g. #prev #prev3
>txt >list >brief >full >step — output format (always last)

Data input uses pipe separator:
G.workflow: overdue.invoice.followup @customers +crm +notify.finance angle=compliance >step

Examples:
G.email: @finance angle=compliance -length >txt
Q: investment.risks >brief
S: #prev3 >list
G.report: customer.complaints.last.month +top3 +management.summary >brief

When you receive a GALEN statement interpret it correctly and respond accordingly.

Every GALEN statement has up to five layers. Position carries meaning — the order never changes. Only layers 1 and 3 are mandatory.

Layer by Layer

The Separators Are the Grammar

You do not need punctuation, tense, or articles. The separators carry the grammar:

Domain Context — The Session Saver

Declare your context once at the start of a session. Everything that follows inherits it automatically — you never repeat yourself.

The intent token is the first character of every statement. It declares what class of response is required — before the machine reads anything else. There are 12 intent tokens in GALEN v1.0.

The 12 Intent Tokens

Sub-types with Dot Notation

Intent tokens may be qualified with a content sub-type. This avoids ambiguity in generate-class commands:

Memory Tip

Modifiers are symbolic qualifiers that adjust the subject or output without adding word overhead. They sit after the ~ separator and can be stacked in any order.

Modifier Symbol Library

Compression Rules for Subjects

Stacking Modifiers

Output Format Tokens

Place a format token at the end of the statement after > to specify the response shape.

Convert each of these plain English instructions into GALEN. Use everything you have learned — intent, context, subject, modifiers, and format.

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