46 hardikpandya stop slop

Skill brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills/skills/46-hardikpandya-stop-slop

Remove AI writing patterns from prose. Use when drafting, editing, or reviewing text to eliminate predictable AI tells.From its SKILL.md

Install

npx -y skills add brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills --skill 46-hardikpandya-stop-slop

Assembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.

One thing to look at

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SKILL.md

2.6 KB, 550 tokens by cl100k_base, as published. Nobody here has run it

Stop Slop

Eliminate predictable AI writing patterns from prose.

Core Rules

Cut filler phrases. Remove throat-clearing openers, emphasis crutches, and all adverbs. See references/phrases.md.
Break formulaic structures. Avoid binary contrasts, negative listings, dramatic fragmentation, rhetorical setups, false agency. See references/structures.md.
Use active voice. Every sentence needs a human subject doing something. No passive constructions. No inanimate objects performing human actions ("the complaint becomes a fix").
Be specific. No vague declaratives ("The reasons are structural"). Name the specific thing. No lazy extremes ("every," "always," "never") doing vague work.
Put the reader in the room. No narrator-from-a-distance voice. "You" beats "People." Specifics beat abstractions.
Vary rhythm. Mix sentence lengths. Two items beat three. End paragraphs differently. No em dashes.
Trust readers. State facts directly. Skip softening, justification, hand-holding.
Cut quotables. If it sounds like a pull-quote, rewrite it.

Quick Checks

Before delivering prose:

Any adverbs? Kill them.
Any passive voice? Find the actor, make them the subject.
Inanimate thing doing a human verb ("the decision emerges")? Name the person.
Sentence starts with a Wh- word? Restructure it.
Any "here's what/this/that" throat-clearing? Cut to the point.
Any "not X, it's Y" contrasts? State Y directly.
Three consecutive sentences match length? Break one.
Paragraph ends with punchy one-liner? Vary it.
Em-dash anywhere? Remove it.
Vague declarative ("The implications are significant")? Name the specific implication.
Narrator-from-a-distance ("Nobody designed this")? Put the reader in the scene.
Meta-joiners ("The rest of this essay...")? Delete. Let the essay move.

Scoring

Rate 1-10 on each dimension:

Dimension	Question
Directness	Statements or announcements?
Rhythm	Varied or metronomic?
Trust	Respects reader intelligence?
Authenticity	Sounds human?
Density	Anything cuttable?

Below 35/50: revise.

Examples

See references/examples.md for before/after transformations.

License

MIT

What ships with it: 6 files

13.4 KB alongside SKILL.md

references/

Gives 1 of the 12 instructions most docs writing skills give in 550 tokens

Counted across 1,951 of the 3,904 authors here whose files we hold, read 2026-09-06

Use third-person for skill descriptionsin 54 of 1951, across 35 files
Start descriptions with Use whenin 43 of 1951, across 29 files
Run baseline scenarios before writing any skillin 40 of 1951, across 26 files
Use active voicehere, and in 40 of 1951, across 36 files
Map file responsibilities before defining tasksin 36 of 1951, across 29 files
Use checkbox syntax for tracking stepsin 35 of 1951, across 27 files
Ask one question at a timein 35 of 1951
Offer execution options after saving the planin 33 of 1951, across 24 files
Include complete code in every stepin 33 of 1951, across 27 files
Design units with clear boundaries and interfacesin 31 of 1951, across 23 files
Announce the skill usage at the startin 30 of 1951
Verify agent compliance after adding the skillin 29 of 1951, across 17 files

Grouped from the skills themselves: near-identical wordings counted once, and counted by distinct author, so one author publishing three of these counts once. Length counted with cl100k_base; the agent that loads this file may tokenize it differently.