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Description: Model accounts of the production effect assumed production results in additional encoding of production-features (e.g., phonological, for reading aloud). We add to this: 1) phonological features emerge early while processing a stimulus and are earlier retrieved than “deeper” features; 2) the dimensionality of the phonological feature space is small, whereas “deeper” features are sparsely subselected from a far larger subspace. Algebraic derivations and simulations of the matched filter model show how this can explain several findings, including why production effects in recognition depend on how other list-items are encoded. This is an important exception to the so-called null list-strength effect. We also reconcile the shallow-feature mechanism with the two dominant propositional theories of production effects, Strength Theory and the Distinctiveness Heuristic. This simple, yet specific set of constraints on the characteristics and dynamics of produced features can explain a broad set of findings without needing to assume that production influences anything other than shallow features that are closely related to production.