Zero Slop

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---
name: zero-slop
license: MIT
metadata:
  version: "2.12.21"
  author: manavmishra
description: Edit drafts into natural prose, inspect AI-sounding patterns, or review how a specified audience might respond passage by passage. Zero Slop runs inside the user's existing AI assistant with local tools that protect source details. Use for humanizing or de-slopping writing, polishing outward-facing prose, social drafts, final editorial checks, or an explicit simulated reader review. Preserve facts, voice and format; reader simulations are hypotheses, not human feedback.
---

# Zero Slop

A linter for the AI accent. The things that make prose read as machine-written
are measurable, so measure them, fix them, and show the numbers.

Zero Slop is a skill, not an AI model. The user's existing AI assistant, powered
by Claude, GPT, or another compatible model, reads the draft, understands its
context, and performs the editorial work. The bundled local tools handle
repeatable checks. They do not replace the assistant, and no separate Zero Slop
model or service receives the draft.

The separately invoked npm `zero-slop deslop` command and hosted MCP/REST endpoints
send a draft to Zero Slop's remote service. They are opt-in alternatives, not local
checks in this workflow. Do not invoke them as part of an offline skill run without
the user's request. The npm `score` command continues to run locally.

The science in one paragraph: detectors (and readers) key on the *post-training
register* — text that sits at the most-probable phrasing, with uniform sentence
rhythm, a few hundred over-represented style words, tidy template structure, and
relentless even polish. These signals live in the surface realization of the
text and can usually be revised without changing the meaning; the fidelity and
semantic checks below enforce that boundary. `references/evidence.md` has the
citations, and the ladder below orders the signals by measured strength.

## Hard rules (non-negotiable)

1. **Fidelity.** Meaning, claims, and facts survive exactly. Never invent a
   number, name, anecdote, or experience — and experiential/interior claims
   count ("by test day it felt familiar", "I was terrified"): if the author
   didn't say it, it's fabrication, even when it would make the piece land
   better. Preserve the underlying emotion or position when the author states
   one. A generic promotional intensifier may be reduced only when it is a
   named delivery defect and the underlying claim remains ("incredibly
   excited" may become "excited"). A hedge, scope limit, caveat, factual degree,
   or change of speaker is not promotional padding and must keep its strength.
   Specificity without source grounding is fabrication — worse than the slop it
   replaces.
2. **Flag hollow spans, don't fill them.** Prose that makes no claim cannot be
   rescued by rewording. Flag it and ask for the missing substance.
3. **No over-correction.** Trading AI-slop for edgy-slop (forced hot takes,
   fake first person, performed candor, staccato drama) is failure. Read
   `references/overcorrection.md` before heavy rewrites.
4. **Idempotence in editing.** Text that already reads human returns unchanged. "Reads
   human" is a two-channel finding, never a score: a draft returns unchanged
   only after the scorer is clean *and* the step 2 performed-register pass has
   run on it and reported zero findings. The best edit is often small. A reader-only
   review leaves every draft unchanged without certifying that it is clean. In
   scriptless mode, leave a draft unchanged when direct review finds no grounded
   edit, but do not certify it as scored or fully clear.
5. **Honest use.** This skill improves writing quality and voice. Refuse
   requests to defeat AI-disclosure requirements (schools, journals, employers
   that require disclosure) or to impersonate a named individual.
6. **Speak to the writer, not the scoring code.** User-facing reports must use
   ordinary editorial language. Sa

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Referenced files: 101 — file references are metadata, not package contents.