| name | remora-deslop |
| description | Use when writing or rewriting any reader-facing Markdown in REMORA-research (README, docs/, ARCHITECTURE, paper .md), when the prose-style ratchet (scripts/check_prose_style.py) fails, or when asked to "deslop", "fjern AI-slop", "rydd prosa", "skriv om dokumentasjon". Removes structural AI-writing tells without touching claims, numbers, anchors or preserved history. |
remora-deslop
Adapted from stephenturner/skill-deslop and poteto/noodle unslop. The
vocabulary catalogs in those skills were measured at zero in this repo
(2026-08-26). What this repo has is structural: em dashes at about five per
thousand words, arrows inside sentences, bold-first bullet lists. This skill
targets those, and adds the constraints an assurance repository needs that
neither source has.
Hard constraints (never violated by a prose pass)
- Numbers, percentages, counts, dates, commit SHAs, issue numbers, CLAIM-/
CAP-/REM-/RF-/DOC- identifiers and claim anchors are copied verbatim.
A prose pass changes wording only. If a number looks wrong, stop and
report it; do not fix it in passing.
- Generated documents are rewritten in their generator, never in the
output. Register status
generated and generated_by name the script.
- NEGATIVE_RESULTS.md section markers (open/accepted/superseded) and any
text labelled superseded, historical or withdrawn are preserved word for
word.
docs/archive/, attic/ and docs/researchpapers/ are out of
scope entirely.
- Pre-registered and frozen documents are never reworded after the fact:
docs/assurance/statistical_analysis_plan_v*.md, superseded_claims.md,
experiments/*/PREREGISTERED.md. Their counts simply stay in the baseline.
- The paper is edited in
paper/remora_paper.md and paper/remora_paper.tex
together; the PDF is master-owned. scripts/check_paper_sync.py must pass.
- README.md stays within its line budget (
check_document_governance.py).
- Every gate that touches text must pass before the PR: document
governance, links, readme-claims, paper-sync, claim-provenance, and
scripts/check_prose_style.py (counts may only fall; then run
--update-baseline and commit the baseline in the same PR).
What to remove
- Em dash in prose. Rewrite the sentence: split it, use a comma, a colon
before a list, or parentheses. Do not search-and-replace the character.
- Arrow (→, ⇒) inside a sentence. Write the relation in words. Keep arrows
in pipeline notation lines (
A → B → C), tables, code and diagrams.
- Bold-first bullets (
- **Label:** text). Turn the list into prose, or a
table if the items really are label/value pairs, or plain bullets whose
first words carry the meaning without bold.
- "Not X, but Y" / "not just X, it's Y". State Y.
- Filler openers and transitions: "it is worth noting", "it should be
noted", "importantly,", "notably,", "in order to".
- Superficial participle tails: ", ensuring safety", ", highlighting the
need for". Either say concretely what is ensured, or delete.
- Copula dodges: "serves as", "stands as". Use "is".
- Tool or assistant residue in reader-facing text: "ChatGPT analysis",
"as the assistant noted", "let me know", "hope this helps". Attribution of
AI assistance belongs in docs/AI_USE.md only.
- Triple stacks of short fragments for emphasis; self-posed questions
answered in the next sentence; "In conclusion"; "Despite these challenges".
What to keep (rejected from the source skills)
- Passive voice and impersonal register where the subject is the system or
the evidence. "The grant is consumed atomically" is correct technical prose.
- Lists of three when there are three things. No tricolon ban.
- Precise domain terms (fail-closed, nonce, envelope hash, PEP, PDP).
- Caveats and hedges that carry information ("not claimed as production
evidence"). Remove only hedges that stack without adding a condition.
- No "soul", opinions, first person or deliberate mess. Assurance documents
are read by reviewers looking for claims; voice is not the goal.
Lessons from the 2026-08-26 pass (six layers, 1160 -> 298 em dashes)
- Never touch headings. The scanner skips them and tests key on heading
text (
## RF-10 in docs/13 broke test_research_shelf). Restore any
heading the rewrite touched from origin/master before committing.
- Condition-to-outcome bullet lists (
- X -> Y) are tables, not prose.
Convert them; tables are exempt from the scan by design.
- Label/value bullet schemas (Claim/Evidence/Artifact, Purpose/Storage/Gap)
keep their structure; only the bold comes off the label.
- Generated documents: change the generator's templates, run it, and make
sure
--check passes; never edit the output.
- A dash at end of line becomes an orphan
; under mechanical joins;
always sweep for ;$ and for **Label**; and ``code; joins, which
read better as a colon or comma.
- Frozen by policy and excluded from the scan: register-historical
documents, pre-registered SAPs and protocols,
results/, data/,
datasets/, tests/ fixtures, the credibility pack, CHANGELOG.md.
Still open for a deliberate decision: NEGATIVE_RESULTS.md (a permanent
record) and the paper (.md and .tex in lockstep, PDF master-owned).
Process for a systematic pass
python scripts/check_prose_style.py --report to pick the next file by
count. Work one layer per PR: reader-facing entry docs first (README,
ARCHITECTURE, DEVELOPER_OVERVIEW, CONTRIBUTING, docs/00-13), then
docs/assurance, then docs/design and roadmap, then generators, then paper.- Read the whole file before editing. Rewrite sentence by sentence; keep
each paragraph's claims and their order.
- Run the gates in constraint 7. Diff the file and re-read the diff for
any changed number or identifier.
python scripts/check_prose_style.py --update-baseline, commit the
baseline with the text.- One PR per layer, titled
docs(prose): <layer>; the PR body lists the
before/after counts from the scanner.
