Prose

Skill davidbaines/claude_configs/skills/prose

A repo to facilitate the sharing of Claude configurations, skills and agents across machines.

Install

npx -y skills add davidbaines/claude_configs --skill prose

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

2 things to look at

29 days oldThe repository was created 29 days ago. New is not bad, but a brand new repository carrying a familiar-sounding name is the shape a typosquat arrives in, and there has been no time for anyone else to find a problem with it.
0 stars0 stars. Stars are a popularity signal and not a quality one, but at this level it is likely that nobody has read this closely except its author, and you would be relying on your own review.

What its author says it does

Copied from the file, not written here

Review and tighten prose or marketing content so it reads clearer and more natural, free of clichés and the tells that mark text as machine-written, in British English. Use when writing or editing any prose, or when asked to check, review, tighten, or improve a document. Invoke with /prose.

SKILL.md

2.2 KB, as published. Nobody here has run it

Apply this whenever you write or edit prose, or when the user asks you to check, review, tighten, or improve a document.

Aim

Make the writing read the way a thoughtful person would actually write it: clear intent, honest claims, a steady voice, no wasted words. Improve towards that, and leave alone anything that already reaches it.

Cut or fix

Clichés, stock phrases, purple prose, and stacked metaphors. Keep at most one image, and only where it earns its place.
Padding and throat-clearing ("It's important to note...", "When it comes to...").
Empty intensifiers ("very", "really", "truly") and weak adverbs. Prefer a stronger verb.
Hedging, over-qualifying, restated points, and passive voice where the active is clearer.
Rhetorical contrast framing: "It's not X, it's Y", "It's not about A, it's about B", "not just... but...". State the point directly rather than setting up a foil to knock down.
AI tells: a rule-of-three in every sentence, strings of em-dashes, "let's dive in", "whether you're A or B", words like "elevate", "unlock", "leverage", "delve", "robust", and "seamless", moralising sign-off sentences, and heavy bold or emoji.

Protect (never change)

Facts, figures, names, dates, prices, URLs, and email addresses.
[PLACEHOLDERS], links, code blocks, and document structure: headings, lists, tables, and frontmatter.
The author's voice and intended tone.
British English spelling and conventions.

How to run

Given a file, read it and edit it in place. Make the smallest changes that fix real problems. Do not rewrite wholesale or change meaning.
Writing something new, hold to the same standard as you draft.
Where a change might alter meaning or fact, leave it and flag it.
Finish with a short note of what you changed and why, and anything left for the author to decide.