All rules

A total time that is not the sum of the steps' times

step-time-sum-mismatchon by defaultJapanese / English

A recipe or guide whose total time is not the sum of its steps' times

Example

Flagged
Total time: 30 minutes 1. Slice the onions (5 minutes). 2. Fry them over a low heat (20 minutes). 3. Add the water and simmer (15 minutes).
What chaff prints
1:13 "30 minutes" is not the sum of the times in the 3 steps (40 minutes)
Fixed
Total time: 40 minutes 1. Slice the onions (5 minutes). 2. Fry them over a low heat (20 minutes). 3. Add the water and simmer (15 minutes).
What chaff prints
no finding

How to fix

Check which is right, the total or the steps' times, and correct the other. If steps run at the same time (the sauce is made while the meat rests), say so.

Why it matters

When a recipe or a guide says "Total time: 60 minutes" and the times written in its numbered steps ("(10 minutes)", "bake for 40 minutes") add up to 80, the reader plans with the wrong figure. It happens when a step is added or a time is changed and the total is not. The rule runs when the document states one total outside its steps (a length right after Total time, Total, Time required) and it has one numbered list whose every step states exactly one time of its own, and compares the two. When the total or a step time is rough ("about 1 hour", "20 minutes or so"), a difference up to a tenth of the total, and at least 5 minutes, agrees.

What it does not flag

A step with no time or with two, a range ("10 to 15 minutes"), a time that is not how long the step takes ("after 10 minutes", "every 5 minutes", "10 minutes later") and a temperature ("preheat to 180°C") make the rule stop rather than add up. Two different totals, a total given as a range, and a document with two or more numbered lists (they may be separate procedures) are not compared either. Steps that run at the same time cannot be told apart, and may be reported.

Turning it off or relaxing it

Silence this one spot (in the document)
<!-- stet: step-time-sum-mismatch — reason -->
Relax it for the team (the reason is kept as a comment in chaff.yaml)
npx chaffjs relax step-time-sum-mismatch --why "reason"
Turn it off for the team (chaff.yaml)
rules: step-time-sum-mismatch: off
Technical details
Layer
L3
Status
stable
Severity
warning
Languages
Japanese and English
Suited to
business, technical, blog, 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
technical/spec, technical/readme, blog/tech, blog/essay, blog/owned-media, business/proposal, business/report, business/email, business/press-release, business/meeting-notes, legal/contract, legal/statute, legal/judgment, legal/patent, docs/manual, docs/faq, docs/glossary, academic/paper, speech/address, speech/transcript
Turned off by the genre in
literature/fiction, literature/essay, literature/poetry, literature/play

Genres

Message

"{written}" is not the sum of the times in the {steps} steps ({sum} minutes)

This page is built from the rule's definition file:packages/chaff/rules/step-time-sum-mismatch.yaml