ai-slop-typography-audit

name	ai-slop-typography-audit
description	Use when auditing an existing artefact for banned or convergent type, weak hierarchy, monotype systems, or unstated choices. Unlike visual-product-slop-audit, this inspects typography only; font selection owns the replacement design.
metadata	{"portable":true,"category":"01-typography-and-fonts","compatible_with":["claude-code","codex"]}

AI-Slop Typography Audit

Acknowledgement: Shared by Peter Bamuhigire, techguypeter.com.

Use When

• Reviewing an existing artifact (site, DOCX/PPTX/PDF, UI screen) for typographic slop.
• A deliverable "feels AI-generated" and you need to find and fix the tells.
• Gate-checking a product before it ships under the Chwezi name.

Do Not Use When

• Choosing fonts from scratch — use font-selection-and-pairing.
• The artifact has no type, or fonts are fixed by a binding brand guideline.

Required Inputs

Input	Supplied by	Required?	Why
Rendered artefact and styles	Requester	yes	Enables visual and source inspection
Audience, medium, and voice	Brief or owner	yes	Tests contextual fitness
Current doctrine and banned list	Design engine	yes	Prevents stale findings

• The artifact or its source (CSS/HTML, the document file, screenshots, or a style spec).
• The intended context and design voice (so the remediation maps to the right font category).

Workflow

1. Detect primary typefaces. Read the CSS font-family stacks / document style / theme. Flag any banned face from doctrine/references/ai-slop-banned-fonts.md used as primary, and flag bare system stacks used alone.
2. Detect secondary slop. Flag Space Grotesk/Poppins/Montserrat/Nunito and standalone Source Sans used as the distinctive choice.
3. Detect structural slop: one font for everything; mid-weights only (no extremes); near-identical size steps; wide-tracked body; pure-black body text.
4. Score each finding (primary-font slop is critical; structural slop is major/minor).
5. Remediate deliberately: propose a non-slop pairing + scale for the artifact's category via font-selection-and-pairing; state the replacement and reason.
6. Report findings → fixes, with before/after.

Anti-Patterns

• Swapping Inter for another single sans and calling it fixed.
• Removing a banned font but keeping monotype, timid weights, or wide-tracked body.
• Calling a face slop from personal taste alone; cite the current list or a documented convergence tell.
• Recommending an unlicensed or unavailable replacement; route the brief through selection and scan.
• Auditing only headings; inspect body, controls, data, errors, and responsive states too.

Outputs

Output	Consumer	Evidence / acceptance
Typography finding register	Designer and owner	Location, tell, severity, evidence, and rule
Gate verdict	Pre-launch QA	PASS, CONDITIONAL, or BLOCKED with rationale
Replacement brief	Typeface selector	Role, voice, hierarchy, and constraints

• A findings list (each tagged critical/major/minor with the rule it breaks) and a stated, non-slop remediation ready to apply.

Examples

• Use the worked example in examples/ as the required findings-to-remediation model.

Quality Standards

• Tie every finding to visible evidence and a current doctrine rule; taste alone is insufficient.
• Inspect display, body, data, and state text at representative sizes and widths.
• Block release for a banned primary face or faux typography until remediated and re-audited.

Decision Rules

Condition	Decision	Wrong-choice failure
Primary face is currently banned	Block and replace	Convergent type ships
Face is allowed but hierarchy is timid	Fail the system, not the family	Font swap is mistaken for design
Distinctiveness harms readability	Find another authored option	Novelty excludes users
Evidence is subjective dislike only	Record critique, not gate failure	Taste becomes doctrine

Capability Contract

Read and visual inspection are required. Review remains read-only unless remediation is requested. Search may inspect styles; rendering is preferred. Current-definition research routes to the doctrine-refresh skill.

Degraded Mode

Without styles, audit the render and mark causes unverified. Without a render, return a checklist and do not issue a pass. If doctrine currency is uncertain, stop and route to refresh.

• examples/typography-audit-filled.md — a filled audit of a sample SaaS landing-page stylesheet (Inter body + Geist display + Space Grotesk accent over a bare system stack): each banned and secondary-slop face detected with the rule it breaks, scored critical/major/minor, then one deliberate non-slop remediation (Bricolage Grotesque 800 -> Hanken Grotesk 400, 03 Modern Product / Grotesque) mapped finding-by-finding with the before/after CSS.

References

• doctrine/references/ai-slop-banned-fonts.md, pairing-principles.md, type-scale-and-spacing.md.