no-slop

A prose linter that catches AI writing patterns. Based on Wikipedia's Signs of AI Writing.

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Before and after

AI slop:

React Query is a groundbreaking library that serves as a pivotal tool in the modern frontend landscape. It seamlessly handles data fetching, caching, and synchronization, showcasing a meticulous approach to state management. The library boasts a vibrant community and has garnered significant adoption, underscoring its enduring value in the ecosystem.

After no-slop:

React Query handles data fetching, caching, and background sync for React apps. You describe what data you need, and it handles refetching, deduplication, and cache invalidation. The community is large — over 40k GitHub stars — and most major React codebases have adopted it.

Same information. No slop.

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What it catches

#	Rule	What it stops
1	Banned vocabulary	40+ words like "delve," "tapestry," "pivotal," "vibrant," "leverage"
2	Simple copulas	Replacing "is/has" with "serves as," "stands as," "boasts"
3	Promotional tone	"Groundbreaking," "revolutionary," marketing-speak in technical writing
4	Vague attributions	"Experts say," "industry reports suggest" with no named source
5	Structural formulas	Rule of three, "not just X but Y," challenges-and-prospects endings
6	Participle chains	"-ing" filler: "highlighting," "showcasing," "emphasizing"
7	Elegant variation	Swapping synonyms for the same thing across sentences
8	Overstating significance	"Marks a turning point," "leaves an indelible mark"
9	Em dash overuse	More than one per paragraph
10	Collaborative language	"Let's explore," "as we can see," "we will examine"
11	Knowledge-cutoff disclaimers	"As of my last update," apologizing for gaps
12	Formatting excess	Over-bolding, emoji, title-case headings, "key takeaways"
13	Human writing habits	Contractions, varied sentence length, specifics over adjectives

Every rule is sourced from Wikipedia:Signs of AI writing, maintained by WikiProject AI Cleanup from observations of thousands of AI-generated texts.

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Install

Claude Code (recommended)

# Clone into your skills directory
git clone https://github.com/Byk3y/no-slop.git ~/.claude/skills/no-slop

That's it. Claude Code auto-discovers skills in ~/.claude/skills/. It will activate whenever you ask it to write prose.

You can also trigger it manually:

/no-slop

Cursor

Copy the contents of agents/cursor.md into your .cursorrules file at your project root.

Codex CLI

See agents/codex.md for setup instructions.

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Usage

Automatic: Just ask your AI to write something — a blog post, email, PR description, documentation. The skill activates on its own for writing tasks.

Manual: Use /no-slop (Claude Code) to force-activate it when auto-detection doesn't kick in.

What it does NOT activate for: Code generation, short chat replies, commit messages. It only applies to prose.

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How it works

no-slop is a constraint skill, not a rewriter. It doesn't take your text and fix it after the fact. It teaches the AI what patterns to avoid while writing, so the first draft comes out clean.