All rules

Attachment mentioned but not shown

attachment-not-attachedon by defaultJapanese / English

An email that says something is attached but shows no attachment

Example

Flagged
Subject: Quote Dear Ms Lee, I have attached the quote for the panels. Best regards, Ichiro
What chaff prints
5:1 An attachment is mentioned, but no attachment line or file name is shown
Fixed
Subject: Quote Dear Ms Lee, I have attached the quote for the panels. Attachment: quote.pdf Best regards, Ichiro
What chaff prints
no finding
chaff.yaml used for this example
genre: business/email

How to fix

Check that the file is attached. If it is, list it before the signature, as in "Attachment: quote.pdf".

Why it matters

Writing "please find attached" and forgetting the attachment is one of the most common mistakes in work email. The recipient has to ask again, and the exchange takes another round. chaff points out a text that mentions an attachment ("attached", "enclosed") when the document shows none: no attachment field ("Attachment:", "Encl.:"), no file name ("quote.pdf"), and no mailing-list note about a removed attachment. chaff cannot see what is really attached to a message, so this helps where the files are listed in the text.

What it does not flag

Phrases that say nothing is attached ("no attachment") or that use the word for something else ("attached to the wall"), and mentions inside a quoted reply, are not counted. Only the email and letter genre runs this rule.

Turning it off or relaxing it

Silence this one spot (in the document)
<!-- stet: attachment-not-attached — reason -->
Relax it for the team (the reason is kept as a comment in chaff.yaml)
npx chaffjs relax attachment-not-attached --why "reason"
Turn it off for the team (chaff.yaml)
rules: attachment-not-attached: off
Technical details
Layer
L2
Status
stable
Severity
warning
Languages
Japanese and English
Suited to
business/email, legal, docs, academic, literature, speech

Levels

Set a level for this rule under rules in chaff.yaml. With nothing set, it runs at the level its genre gives it (see By genre below).

stricterror
normalwarning
relaxedinfo

This rule has no limit to count to. A level sets how a finding is marked: relaxed keeps the finding and marks it a step lower.

By genre

Runs by default in
business/email
Turned off by the genre in
legal/contract, legal/statute, legal/judgment, legal/patent, docs/manual, docs/faq, docs/glossary, academic/paper, literature/fiction, literature/essay, literature/poetry, literature/play, speech/address, speech/transcript
Not suited to, and not run in
technical/spec, technical/readme, blog/tech, blog/essay, blog/owned-media, business/proposal, business/report, business/press-release, business/meeting-notes

Genres

Message

An attachment is mentioned, but no attachment line or file name is shown

Rewrite depth (chaff fix-plan --depth): light — words and sentences; the structure and the voice stay

This page is built from the rule's definition file:packages/chaff/rules/attachment-not-attached.yaml