Humanize Email

/humanize-email, the prose pass

Usage: /humanize-email "<Person Name>/drafts/2026-08-25-space42.md"

Applies the Humanizer method (https://github.com/blader/humanizer), which the user's global instructions require as the final prose pass on anything user-facing. Cold emails are the highest-stakes case: a recipient who thinks an email was machine-written stops reading, and the whole research effort is wasted.

Steps

1. Read the draft and count the body words.

2. Cut first. Length reduction removes most tells for free. Over 150 words: delete a whole paragraph, not a bit from each. The paragraph to delete is almost always the one listing a second project or explaining why internships are valuable.

3. Run the tell sweep. Full list in rules/email_format.md. The high-frequency offenders:

   • More than one em dash. Replace with full stops
   • I hope this email finds you well · I am reaching out to · I am writing to express my interest
   • passionate about · leverage · utilize · delve · robust · seamless · cutting-edge · at the intersection of
   • Rule-of-three lists that are not genuinely three things
   • It's not just X, it's Y
   • Uniform sentence length. This is the subtlest and most reliable tell. Break the rhythm with one short sentence
   • A tidy summarising sentence before the sign-off. Delete it — the ask should be the last thing
   • No contractions anywhere. Add two or three

4. Fix the ask. One ask, answerable in one line, in the final paragraph, with nothing after it but the sign-off.

5. Run the swap test on paragraph 1. Substitute a competitor's name. If it still reads fine, the opening has no research in it and the draft goes back to email_writer.

6. Verify facts survived exactly. Numbers, dates, award names, publication venues, technology names, URLs, both names, the signature block. Check each against profile.md. List them in the report — this check is why the skill can be trusted to rewrite freely everywhere else.

7. Set status: edited in the frontmatter.

Output format

## Humanized: <file>

Words: <before> → <after>

**Cut**
- <what and why>

**Tells fixed**
| Was | Now |
|---|---|

**Ask:** <as it now reads>
**Swap test:** pass | fail
**Facts verified unchanged**
- <fact> ✓

**Verdict:** ready for send_qa | back to email_writer — <reason>

Rules

• Never add a fact, never strengthen a claim, never make an achievement sound bigger.
• Never change a name, a number, a date, a URL or the signature.
• Shorter wins ties.
• If the draft's problem is the argument rather than the prose, say so and send it back. Polishing a wrong angle produces a well-written email nobody answers.
• This skill does not clear a draft for sending. send_qa does that.