Prose Editing

Prose editing

Edit an existing draft without changing what it claims. The caller supplies the prose and, when it knows, the register. Return only the prose when another skill invokes this one.

Choose the operation

Explicit edit intent wins. A request to rewrite, tighten, or humanize remains an edit even when it also asks for findings or a score.

Use audit only when the caller explicitly asks for no changes, an audit, or findings without a rewrite. Text written by somebody else is not automatically read-only. Protect quoted third-party passages, but offer or make a requested rewrite of the surrounding draft.

Choose the primary register

A caller-provided register wins. Otherwise, use the document's primary purpose:

Purpose outranks a byline. A technical README with an author's name remains flavored. When the purpose is genuinely ambiguous and choosing wrong would materially change the rewrite, ask one focused question. Otherwise use voiced, which makes the least structural change.

Use one numeric primary score. Do not invent a register map. In a mixed document, keep its primary register and manually apply strict rules to procedural and safety sections. This local override does not produce a second score.

If the user supplies a sample of their own writing, read it before the draft. Its stable sentence rhythm, vocabulary, punctuation, transitions, and quirks govern voiced edits. A sample can justify em dashes, curly quotes, repeated openings, or other deliberate habits that are weak evidence by themselves.

Prepare a safe working copy

Never write beside this installed skill. Create a unique directory with the system temporary-directory API. Keep these paths inside it:

• source.md: an unchanged snapshot used for the meaning check.
• rewrite.md: the only bytes scored before and after; edit this file.
• before.json: the baseline report for that exact normalized rewrite.md path.
• voice.md: an unchanged snapshot of a supplied writing sample, when present.

For pasted text, write the supplied bytes to source.md, then copy it to rewrite.md. For a user file, copy the file to both paths and do not touch the original until the rewrite passes every guard. Use process argument arrays where the host supports them. If a shell is unavoidable, quote every path, including the trusted skill directory and all temporary paths. Never paste a user-controlled path into an unquoted command.

When the user supplies a writing sample, copy its exact bytes to voice.md and pass --voice-sample "<unique-temp-dir>/voice.md" on both linter runs. Omit the option on both runs when there is no sample. A different or changed sample makes the baseline incompatible.

Resolve scripts/lint.py relative to this SKILL.md. The equivalent shell shape without a writing sample is:

python "<skill-dir>/scripts/lint.py" --json --register <register> \
  "<unique-temp-dir>/rewrite.md" > "<unique-temp-dir>/before.json"

When a sample exists, insert --voice-sample "<unique-temp-dir>/voice.md" after the register argument.

Use the host's UTF-8 file APIs or redirection in the temporary directory. Do not use a fixed before.json. Delete the unique directory after delivery.

Edit loop

Skip to Audit for audit. For an edit:

1. Load the references named by the register. Read every rule that applies.

2. Score rewrite.md and save the complete JSON as before.json.

3. Read all violations, samples, markers, and manual checks. A zero score does not clear a marker or a rule that needs judgment.

4. Build a private source inventory. Record every proposition, condition, exception, scope qualifier, modal force, name, number, version, date, quote, citation, identifier, and safety consequence.

5. Rewrite rewrite.md. Change the smallest useful span, except when several patterns cluster in one paragraph; then rewrite that paragraph around its concrete point.

6. Score the same normalized rewrite.md path against before.json:

   python "<skill-dir>/scripts/lint.py" --json --register <register> \
     --baseline "<unique-temp-dir>/before.json" \
     "<unique-temp-dir>/rewrite.md"
   

   When the baseline used a writing sample, insert the same --voice-sample "<unique-temp-dir>/voice.md" argument after the register.

   A baseline metadata or path mismatch is a failed verification, not a score. Correct the invocation and rerun it. Never reuse a report from another register, quote policy, file, or linter score version.

7. Make at most one more rewrite-and-score pass.

8. Compare source.md with rewrite.md in both directions. Every source proposition and qualifier must survive, and every output proposition must come from the source or an explicit user instruction. Preserve must, should, may, can, uncertainty, negation, and exceptions unless the source itself licenses the change.

9. Run the manual checklist and an adversarial final read. Ask: "What still sounds generated?", "What fact or limit disappeared?", and "What did this rewrite add?" Repair any defect those questions expose.

10. Only now copy the final prose to the requested destination. For a user file, replace its prose while preserving protected spans. For pasted text, return the rewrite.

If Python cannot run, perform the same reference, inventory, and adversarial checks by eye. Say not linted and report no estimated number.

Audit

Do not rewrite or create an output document.

1. Load all three references and score the supplied working copy once with --register audit.
2. Infer the primary register from document purpose. Classify each hit as governing, out of register, or a false positive.
3. Check every marker and every manual rule, including claim preservation, voice-sample conflicts, repeated names/openings, article use, paragraph focus, headings that restate themselves, and hollow paragraphs.
4. Return the single score, the source claim/condition/scope inventory, and a compact findings table: rule, source span, classification, and suggested edit. Make no change.

Protected spans and Markdown

Never change fenced or inline code, commands, identifiers, part numbers, units, error strings used for search, YAML frontmatter, data, or link targets. Link text is prose. Preserve quoted third-party language when context identifies it as a quotation, title, example under discussion, or externally owned text.

Blockquotes, callouts, and table cells are not inherently quotations. Lint and edit their first-party prose. Use --quote-safe only when the caller explicitly identifies the running prose as examples or third-party quotation that must be excluded. It suppresses findings only in those protected regions. The option must not hide ordinary first-party prose elsewhere in the document.

Read the report

Consume the full JSON object. Never decide from the exit code alone.

Singleton transitions, curly quotes, em dashes, short emphatic sentences, and deliberate repetition are markers, not proof of machine writing. Score them only when they form the repeated or clustered pattern documented by the reference. A supplied voice sample outranks those style defaults in voiced.

Delivery

Another skill invokes this pass exactly once, after it has composed all free-form prose and before it shows, gates, or posts that prose. A transport layer does not invoke it. Do not apply it automatically to structured payloads, commands, checksums, generated reports, ADRs, AGENTS files, skills, PRDs, or other local documents with an owning authoring skill. An explicit user request can still edit any prose document.

Completion

Work is complete only when:

• the operation and primary register match the caller's intent;
• the before and after reports came from the same canonical rewrite.md, voice sample, score version, register, and quote policy, or the response says not linted;
• every scored violation, marker, and applicable manual rule is fixed, rejected with a concrete false-positive reason, classified out of register in an audit, or reported as unresolved;
• the two-way inventory proves that no source claim, scope limit, condition, or modal force was lost and no unsupported claim was added;
• protected bytes are unchanged;
• an adversarial final read found no remaining unreported defect;
• delivery follows the table above; and
• the unique temporary directory is removed.