# Deslop > Copy-edit text to strip AI/LLM writing tells ("slop") and make it read as human-written — overused words (delve, showcase, robust), significance-inflation phrases ("stands as a testament to", "plays a pivotal role"), scene-setting openers ("in today's fast-paced world"), hedging, em-dash overuse, rule-of-three, and "it's not X, it's Y" parallelism. Use when asked to "deslop", "de-slop", "remove AI tells", "make this sound less like AI/ChatGPT", "make this sound human", or copy-edit a draft (.md, .txt, prose, emails, docs) that reads as machine-generated. - Skill: `nielsmadan/deslop` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 3 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add nielsmadan/deslop` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/nielsmadan/deslop/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: AI & ML - Author: nielsmadan (https://skillmd.com/u/nielsmadan) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/nielsmadan/deslop --- # Deslop Copy-edit text to remove LLM writing patterns so it reads as human-written. ## The core idea Slop is text engineered to *sound* authoritative while saying little: inflated vocabulary, formulaic significance-frames, reflexive hedging, and mechanical structure. The job is **not** find-and-replace from a synonym table — that just makes *differently* robotic text. The job is to **delete the inflation and force a concrete specific**, while preserving the author's meaning and voice. Three rules that override everything else: 1. **Density, not isolated words.** One "crucial" on a page is fine. Act on clusters and reflexive use. 2. **Don't over-edit.** Legitimate uses stay; voice and meaning are preserved; no facts change. When in doubt, lighter edit + flag it. 3. **Prose only.** Never edit inside fenced blocks, inline code, commands, paths, URLs, link targets, or YAML frontmatter. A literal `underscore` in a naming rule and `--not --remotes` in a git invocation are not tells. ## Flags - `--report` — detect and list tells with locations; do **not** rewrite. Use when the author wants to edit themselves. - `--all` — include the low-signal word hits the detector hides on reference docs. - Default — rewrite the text, removing tells, then summarize what changed. ## Workflow ### Step 1: Get the text and mode - **File path in the prompt** (`.md`, `.txt`, etc.) → read it. - **Text pasted in the conversation** → operate on that. - **Neither** → ask the user to paste the text or give a path. Don't proceed without input. - `--report` present → detection-only mode (Step 4 only). ### Step 2: Read the full catalog Read `references/patterns.md`. It holds the word lists, phrase lists, structural tells, and — critically — section 4 "What NOT to touch". Don't skip it; the anti-over-editing guidance is half the skill. ### Step 3: Run the detector for coverage ```bash python3 scripts/flag.py # or: cat file | python3 scripts/flag.py - ``` It masks code, then scans the prose for known tells and prints each with a line number and category, plus stance-word echoes and em-dash density. It **over-flags on purpose** — every hit is a *candidate*, not a verdict. Use it so nothing is missed in long text; then judge each in context yourself. (For pasted text, write it to a scratch file first, or just scan by eye against the catalog for short passages.) It reports a **genre** on the first line, which sets how hard to look: - **reference** — docs that state behavior (CLI pages, API references, config guides). The vocabulary is fixed by the subject, so single-word puffery hits carry almost no signal and are hidden; `--all` shows them. What matters here is punctuation density, filler, and echoes. - **persuasive** — pages making a case (landing pages, comparisons, READMEs, announcements, instructions written to convince). Everything applies. This is where the judgment pass earns its keep. Override with `--genre` when the detector guesses wrong. A page that argues inside a reference site is persuasive whatever the surrounding directory. ### Step 3b: Project vocabulary Every codebase has terms of art the catalog also lists as tells — a *harness* that is a test harness, a *comprehensive* mode that is a mode name, a literal *unlock*. Suppress them once instead of re-judging them every run: ``` # .deslopignore at the repo root — one term per line, # comments allowed harness comprehensive ``` The nearest `.deslopignore` walking up from the file is used, merged with a machine-wide `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/deslop/ignore` (default `~/.config/deslop/ignore`) for terms that recur across every project. `--ignore a,b` adds more for one run. Suppressed hits are reported as a count, never silently — if that count is large, the list may be hiding a real tell. **Offer to add a term** when you dismiss the same word as a term of art twice in one pass. Don't edit the ignore file without asking. ### Step 4: Edit (or report) **Report mode (`--report`):** present the detector's findings grouped by category, add any structural/tonal tells the script can't catch (rule-of-three, both-sides non-conclusions, copula avoidance, over-bolding), and stop. Don't rewrite. **Default (rewrite) mode:** for each candidate, decide in context: - **Delete** the inflation when it adds nothing ("plays a pivotal role in" → state what it does, or cut). This is the most common fix. - **Replace** with a concrete specific or a plain word when one fits — but **vary** replacements; don't turn every "delve" into "explore". - **Keep** legitimate/technical/literal uses and intentional voice. - **Restructure** the tics: collapse rule-of-three to one precise word, undo "not X, it's Y" to the positive claim, restore normal punctuation for overused em-dashes, turn copula-avoidance ("serves as") back into "is", cut reflexive "In conclusion"/"Overall" wrap-ups. - **Break stance echoes.** When one evaluative word carries the framing three or more times ("an *honest* look" … "taking the survey *honestly*" … "the *honest* flip side"), the text is asserting a judgment it is already demonstrating. Keep the one instance that does work and cut the rest — don't reach for synonyms, which just relocates the tic. Preserve formatting that helps; convert reflexive bolding/emoji-bullets/ over-headed text back to prose where prose reads better. **Em-dash density is relative to the author, not absolute.** The detector's 3/1000 threshold is a prompt to look, not a target. A writer whose own notes run at 15/1000 is using dashes as voice; the same rate in a page written for strangers reads as a tic, because the reader has no baseline for it. Sample a few documents the author wrote for themselves before deciding a count is high, and trim toward the reader rather than toward zero. ### Step 5: Output - **File input:** apply edits and show a concise diff (or write a `*.deslopped` copy if the user prefers not to overwrite — ask if unsure for important files). - **Pasted input:** return the cleaned text. - Then add a short **changelog**: what categories you cut/changed, and — just as important — **what you deliberately left** and why (e.g. "kept 'robust' — it's the statistical term of art here"). This builds trust and surfaces judgment calls for the user to override. ## Examples ### Example 1: Rewrite a draft file User: "deslop blog-draft.md" 1. Read `blog-draft.md` and `references/patterns.md`. 2. `python3 scripts/flag.py blog-draft.md` → 18 candidates, em-dashes 4.1/1000. 3. Edit: cut the "In today's fast-paced world" opener; "stands as a testament to" → "shows"; collapse "powerful, flexible, and intuitive" → "flexible"; undo two "it's not X — it's Y" constructions; restore commas for 5 of 7 em-dashes; keep one literal "landscape" (about hiking). 4. Show diff + changelog noting the literal "landscape" was kept. ### Example 2: Report only User: "run deslop --report on this" + pasted text Write text to a scratch file, run `flag.py`, present findings grouped by category with line refs, add the structural tells the script misses, and stop — no rewrite. ### Example 3: A docs directory User: "deslop the user docs" 1. Run `flag.py` over each file. Most come back `genre: reference` with nothing flagged — say so plainly rather than manufacturing edits. 2. The comparison page comes back `genre: persuasive`, with `3× honest/honestly`. Read it: the page asserts even-handedness three times while already demonstrating it. Cut two, keep the one carrying weight. 3. Two suppressed hits were `harness`, a term of art in this repo — offer a `.deslopignore` entry so the next run doesn't re-raise them. 4. Report per file, and name the files you changed nothing in. ### Example 4: Pasted paragraph User: "make this sound less like ChatGPT: " Scan against the catalog (short enough to skip the script), rewrite removing the tells, return the cleaned paragraph + a one-line note on the main changes. ## Troubleshooting ### The rewrite reads flattened / lost the author's voice **Cause:** Over-editing — mechanical removal of every flagged word, including ones that carried tone or precision. **Solution:** Re-read section 4 of `references/patterns.md`. Act on density, not every hit; keep intentional register; prefer deleting *empty* inflation over swapping *every* word. Offer a lighter pass. ### The detector flagged a legitimate word (literal "landscape", "robust" in stats) **Cause:** The script over-flags by design; it can't see context. **Solution:** Keep the legitimate use and note it in the changelog. The script is a coverage net, not a judge — you decide. If the same word is a term of art in this codebase and will recur on every run, offer to add it to `.deslopignore` rather than re-judging it each time. ### The report is all noise on a reference doc **Cause:** Running with `--all`, or a genre misdetection on a page that is mostly prose about a command surface. **Solution:** Drop `--all` and trust the demotion. Single-word puffery is close to meaningless where the vocabulary is fixed by the subject — on that kind of page the real signals are echoes, filler, and punctuation density. ### Replacements themselves sound like AI **Cause:** One-to-one synonym swapping across the whole text creates a new tell (every "delve" → "explore"). **Solution:** Vary word choice, or — better — delete the inflated frame and state the concrete point. The catalog's guiding principle is deletion over substitution. ### Nothing flagged but it still reads like AI **Cause:** The real signal is structural/tonal (formulaic arcs, both-sides non-conclusions, even paragraph rhythm, vague claims), which a word list can't catch. **Solution:** Apply section 3 of the catalog by judgment: vary sentence length, land conclusions on a position, replace vague claims with specifics, break the intro-body-summary template.