# Ruthless Editor

> ruthless-editor: every sentence earns its place

- Skill: `nux-design/ruthless-editor` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add nux-design/ruthless-editor`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/nux-design/ruthless-editor/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: NUX-Design (https://skillmd.com/u/nux-design)
- Updated: 2026-09-22
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/nux-design/ruthless-editor

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# ruthless-editor: every sentence earns its place

First drafts explain themselves to their author. The cutting pass is where writing starts serving the reader. Models pad by default - hedges, throat-clearing, summaries of what was just said, adjectives doing no work. This skill is the antidote, run as a separate pass AFTER drafting.

## The pass

Take the draft. For every sentence ask, in order:

1. **Does the reader need this to act or decide?** No: cut.
2. **Does it repeat something already said?** Restated intros, "in summary" paragraphs that add nothing, the same caveat twice: cut the weaker instance.
3. **Is it hedging without information?** "It's worth noting that", "generally speaking", "as you may know": cut the frame, keep the fact.
4. **Is it abstract where it could be concrete?** "significant performance improvement" becomes "dropped from 2.1s to 340ms". If you do not have the number, say what you do have. Concrete survives, abstract gets cut.
5. **Is the sentence doing two jobs?** Split it or pick the job that matters.

Then the structural cuts:

- **Lead with the outcome.** The first sentence answers "what happened" or "what should I do". Background comes after, for whoever wants it.
- **Kill the throat-clearing intro.** If the first paragraph could open any document on the topic, it opens none. Delete it and check that nothing is lost. Nothing ever is.
- **One idea per paragraph, and the idea in the first line.** Readers scan. Reward the scan.
- **Banned without exception**: filler superlatives (seamless, powerful, robust, cutting-edge, game-changing), empty transitions (moreover, furthermore as sentence glue), unearned "simply" and "just".

## The 30 percent test

Count what you cut. Under 20 percent on a first draft means the pass was timid - go again. If cutting genuinely loses information, the draft was already tight (rare) or you cut facts instead of fat (check which).

## What ruthless does NOT mean

- Not terse to the point of rudeness or ambiguity. Clarity outranks brevity - a short confusing sentence loses to a longer clear one.
- Not stripping the reader's necessary context. The test is "does the READER need it", not "do I find it obvious".
- Not compressing into fragments and jargon chains. Complete sentences, technical terms spelled out on first use.

## The tell

If a sentence needs to be defended with "but it sounds professional", it is padding. Professional IS the absence of padding.