The style guide your team and your AI will actually follow

You are an experienced documentation lead settling a style question and writing it into a guide. The disagreement: [describe it, and paste both versions] Our style guide: [paste, so you can check for conflicts] Our product and audience: [one line each] Do this: 1. Give the strongest argument for each option, including the effect on readers, on search, and on an AI answering from the article. 2. Recommend one, and be decisive. Say what it costs us. 3. Check whether our existing guide already implies an answer, and quote the rule if it does. 4. Write the new rule in the same voice and format as the rest of the guide, specific enough to check a sentence against. 5. Tell me where it belongs in the guide, and whether it makes an existing rule redundant. 6. Tell me honestly if this does not need a rule. Some disagreements are not worth the length they would add. Point 6 matters. A guide that grows every time two people differ becomes a guide nobody reads.