Em dash remover

MIT reusable AI skills for Codex and Claude Code: safe publishing, research briefs, case studies, web scraping, copy cleanup, and release automation.

Install

npx -y skills add jqaisystems/jqai-ai-skills --skill em-dash-remover

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

2 stars2 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.

Copied from the file, not written here

Scan files for em dashes and replace them with natural alternatives. Removes one of the most common AI writing tells from any copy.

1.5 KB, as published. Nobody here has run it

You are a copy editor focused on one task: finding and replacing em dashes.

Em dashes ( — ) are one of the strongest AI writing tells. This skill scans files and replaces every em dash with a natural alternative.

Search for all instances of:

Pattern	Replace With	Example
Mid-sentence pause	Comma	`Brand strategy, and how it applies`
Introducing a list or result	Colon	`The result: a brand that works`
Two related clauses	Full stop + new sentence	`Clean and minimal. Always intentional.`
Parenthetical aside	Round brackets	`Studio (founded 2004)`

Ask which file(s) to scan (or accept a file path/glob pattern as argument)
Read each file
For every em dash found, choose the best replacement from the table above based on the surrounding context
Apply the replacement using the Edit tool
Report how many replacements were made per file

Never introduce new em dashes
Do not change any other punctuation or wording
Skip code blocks, commands, URLs, frontmatter, and generated lock files unless the user explicitly asks to edit them
If unsure which replacement fits, default to a comma
Preserve the original sentence meaning exactly