humanizer

name	humanizer
description	Strip AI writing patterns from text. Standalone access to the economics-paper-writer agent's humanizer pass. Checks 24 patterns across 4 categories (structural, lexical, rhetorical, formatting) with academic adaptation. Use on any text that reads too "AI-generated".
disable-model-invocation	true
argument-hint	[file path to .tex, .md, or .txt file]
allowed-tools	["Read","Write","Edit","Grep","Glob"]

Humanizer

Strip AI writing patterns from academic text. This provides standalone access to the humanizer pass that's built into the economics-paper-writer agent.

Input: $ARGUMENTS — path to file to humanize.

---

Workflow

Step 1: Read the File

Read the target file from $ARGUMENTS. Support .tex, .md, .txt, and .qmd files.

Step 2: Scan for AI Patterns

Check all 24 patterns across 4 categories:

Category 1: Structural Tics (6 patterns)

1. Triplet lists — "X, Y, and Z" appearing 3+ times in a section
2. Formulaic transitions — "Moreover", "Furthermore", "Additionally" as sentence starters
3. Echo conclusions — final paragraph restates every point
4. Uniform paragraph length — all paragraphs suspiciously similar in length
5. Topic sentence + support — every paragraph follows identical structure
6. Numbered/bulleted reasoning — "First... Second... Third..." in prose

Category 2: Lexical Tells (6 patterns)

7. "Delve" — almost never used by humans in academic writing
8. "Landscape" — as metaphor ("the policy landscape")
9. "Crucial/pivotal/vital" — overused intensifiers
10. "Multifaceted" — AI favorite
11. "Underscores" — as verb ("this underscores the importance")
12. "Navigate" — metaphorical ("navigate the challenges")

Category 3: Rhetorical Patterns (6 patterns)

13. Excessive hedging — "it is worth noting", "interestingly", "arguably"
14. Performative enthusiasm — "fascinating", "remarkable", "exciting"
15. False balance — "while X, it is also true that Y" for every claim
16. Hollow acknowledgment — "this raises important questions" without answering them
17. Premature synthesis — summarizing before enough evidence is presented
18. Universal agreement — "scholars agree", "it is widely recognized"

Category 4: Formatting Tells (6 patterns)

19. Over-signposting — "In this section, we will discuss..."
20. Excessive parallelism — every sentence in a list has identical structure
21. Definitional opening — starting sections with dictionary-style definitions
22. Disclaimer stacking — multiple caveats before making a point
23. Summary before content — "This section covers X, Y, and Z" at the start
24. Colon-list pattern — "There are three key factors: (1)... (2)... (3)..."

Step 3: Apply Fixes

For each detected pattern:

1. Identify the specific instance
2. Rewrite to sound more natural/human
3. Preserve the academic content and meaning

Academic Adaptation Rules

• Preserve formal structure where it's genuinely needed (equations, theorems, proofs)
• Keep technical terms — don't simplify domain vocabulary
• Maintain citation density — don't remove scholarly references
• Vary sentence structure — mix short and long, simple and complex
• Allow imperfection — real writing has slight asymmetries and personality

Step 4: Report Changes

Present a summary of changes:

## Humanizer Report: [filename]
**Patterns found:** N / 24
**Changes made:** N

| # | Pattern | Category | Location | Change |
|---|---------|----------|----------|--------|
| 1 | Triplet lists | Structural | Section 3, para 2 | Varied list lengths |
| 2 | "Delve" | Lexical | Line 47 | Replaced with "examine" |
...

Step 5: Save

Overwrite the original file with the humanized version (the user can review via git diff).

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Principles

• Preserve meaning. The content must be identical — only the expression changes.
• Don't over-correct. Some formal academic patterns are normal, not AI tells.
• Context-aware. "Moreover" in a proof is fine. "Moreover" as every paragraph opener is not.
• Reversible. User can always git checkout to undo.
• Light touch for good writing. If only 2-3 patterns found, the text is probably fine. Focus effort on heavily AI-patterned text.