Various aspects of the present disclosure generally relate to wireless communication. In some aspects, a wireless communication device may determine to block puncture or to block shorten a set of transmitted bits of an adjusted fractally enhanced kernel polar code for a communication of an incremental redundancy (IR)-hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process based at least in part on a code rate associated with the communication of the IR-HARQ process. The wireless communication device may generate the adjusted fractally enhanced kernel polar code for the communication based at least in part on determining to block puncture or to block shorten the set of transmitted bits. The wireless communication device may transmit the communication using the adjusted fractally enhanced kernel polar code. Numerous other aspects are provided.