designxdevelop/agent-skills/anti-slop

Anti-Slop

Goal

Remove formulaic filler, vague puffery, and repeated rhetorical patterns without changing the author's meaning, register, or intentional style.

When to Use

Use this for a requested anti-slop or voice-preserving editorial pass. Do not load it for ordinary drafting or a general proofreading request unless the user identifies AI-sounding prose as the problem.

Workflow

1. Read the whole piece and identify its voice, audience, and argument.
2. Mark candidates that add little meaning or repeat a recognizable formula.

Common candidates include meta introductions, unearned importance claims, vague conclusions, inflated predictions, and decorative metaphors.

1. Keep candidates that serve a deliberate rhetorical purpose. When uncertain,

preserve the original.

1. Make the smallest phrasing edits that improve clarity or specificity. Keep

facts, structure, and the author's position unchanged unless asked.

1. Re-read edited passages for rhythm and report material edits when reviewing.

For a contested edit or a broader catalog of tells, read references/tells.md.

Guardrails

• Never change facts, names, citations, technical claims, or argument during a

phrasing pass.

• Never treat particular words, punctuation, fragments, parallelism, or

rhetorical devices as automatically wrong. Judge their effect in context.

• Preserve intentional cadence, humor, conviction, and register.
• Stop when further edits would be taste rather than a clear improvement.

Completion Checklist

• [ ] The author's voice and intent were understood before edits.
• [ ] Each edit removes a concrete tell or improves specificity.
• [ ] Meaning and factual content remain intact.
• [ ] The revised passages still sound intentional when read aloud.

Attribution

Adapted from `elithrar/dotfiles` anti-slop, created by Matt Silverlock and licensed under the MIT License.