ai-phrase-check

name

ai-phrase-check

description

Use when text needs review for AI-typical phrases (English or German) and replacement with more human alternatives. Trigger phrases - "check this for AI phrases", "AI-Phrasen prüfen", "lint this text", "remove AI tells", "make this sound less AI", "clean up this draft". Bilingual auto-detect. Three-stage flow with user gates - Detect (regex, free), then Suggest (LLM, optional), then Apply (only with explicit user choice).

ai-phrase-check

A bilingual (English / German) detector for AI-typical phrases. Runs in three stages with user gates between each.

When to Use

Trigger this skill when the user:

• Pastes text and asks for AI-phrase review
• Provides a file path (*.md, *.txt) and asks to check it
• Says "lint this," "clean up this draft," "remove AI tells," "AI-Phrasen prüfen"

Inputs

Two input modes:

Input	Mode	Output
Pasted text in the conversation	paste	Inline output
Path to an existing file	file	Diff + apply gate

Detect input mode automatically: if the argument matches an existing file path, use file mode; otherwise treat the input as pasted text and write it to a temp file for processing.

Three-Stage Flow

Stage 1 — Detect

Run scripts/detect.sh <input-file> (auto-detects language). Output is TSV findings prefixed by # language: and # findings: metadata. Parse and present:

Found N findings (language: en|de)

| Line | Phrase | Severity | Matched text |
|------|--------|----------|--------------|
| 14   | delve into | high | delve into |
| 22   | tapestry | high | tapestry |

If 0 findings: report "No AI phrases found." and stop. Otherwise:

Gate: "Want context-aware suggestions for these N findings? (Stage 2 calls Claude — costs tokens.)"

Stage 2 — Suggest

If user accepts: load references/prompt-templates/stage2-suggest.md, build the prompt with the input text + findings + language, ask Claude (yourself) to produce contextual alternatives. Present per finding:

Line 14: "delve into"
  1. explore (natural in technical contexts)
  2. examine (better for analytical writing)
  3. (remove — sentence works without it)

Line 22: "tapestry"
  1. mix
  2. (remove — sentence flows without it)

Gate: "Apply which suggestions? Reply with one of:

• all — apply suggestion #1 for every finding
• 1.2 2.1 — apply suggestion 2 for finding 1, suggestion 1 for finding 2
• none — stop here"

Stage 3 — Apply

Build a substitutions TSV from the user's choices and run:

scripts/apply.sh <input-file> <subs.tsv>

For paste mode: print the modified text inline. For file mode: show a diff against the original. Then ask: "Write the modified file? (yes/no)" — only on yes do you actually write.

Edge Cases

• Tie or zero findings in language detection: Run the language-detect prompt template (references/prompt-templates/language-detect.md) — Claude classifies and chooses.
• Very short input (<20 words): Skip auto-detect, ask the user "EN or DE?"
• File mode but file is read-only: Stop and report.
• No phrase list found: This is a setup error — fail with a clear message pointing to references/.

Reports

After every run, output a summary:

## ai-phrase-check Report — YYYY-MM-DD

### Done
- Detected: 5 phrases (3 high, 2 medium)
- Suggested: alternatives for 5 phrases
- Applied: 3 substitutions (user-chosen)

### Findings (not applied)
- Line 22 "tapestry": user chose to keep

### Unchanged
- 142 lines (no AI tells found)

Append the report to logs/run-history.md.

Conventions

• All shell content, code, and report output in English
• No emoji in skill output
• No hardcoded paths — scripts resolve via git rev-parse --show-toplevel
• Always honor the user gates — never auto-chain Detect to Apply