slop-cop-prose

Slop Cop (prose)

Before returning a piece of prose to the user (a blog paragraph, a doc, a PR description, a commit message, a release note, an email), run it through slop-cop to catch LLM-generated writing tells (overused intensifiers, filler adverbs, negation pivots, em-dash abuse, throat-clearing, hedge stacks, metaphor crutches, and so on), and revise.

This is a self-review loop: the draft is yours, the review tool is also yours, and the user sees only the revised result.

When to run

Run this skill whenever the user asks to:

• Write or draft prose (blog posts, docs, marketing copy, summaries, emails).
• Revise, polish, edit, or shorten existing prose.
• Produce a PR description, commit message, changelog entry, or release notes.

Do not run it on:

• Code, SQL, JSON, YAML, configs, shell commands, or other non-prose artefacts.
• Single-sentence acknowledgements (e.g. "Done.", "Pushed.").
• Content the user explicitly wants preserved verbatim.

Resolving the binary

Before every run of the skill, evaluate these three options in order and use the first one that works:

# 1. Pre-installed on PATH (CI, scripting, or the user already has it).
if command -v slop-cop >/dev/null 2>&1; then
  SLOP_COP=slop-cop
# 2. Bundled inside the plugin (normal install path).
elif [ -x "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT:-${CURSOR_PLUGIN_ROOT:-}}/bin/slop-cop" ]; then
  SLOP_COP="${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT:-${CURSOR_PLUGIN_ROOT}}/bin/slop-cop"
# 3. First run: bootstrap the binary into the plugin dir, then use it.
else
  PLUGIN_ROOT="${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT:-${CURSOR_PLUGIN_ROOT:-}}"
  bash "${PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/install-binary.sh"
  SLOP_COP="${PLUGIN_ROOT}/bin/slop-cop"
fi

On Windows replace the final step with pwsh "$env:CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT\scripts\install-binary.ps1" (or powershell -File ...) and point SLOP_COP at bin\slop-cop.exe.

The installer is idempotent (a no-op when the binary is already present), so calling it on every skill invocation is safe but wasteful. Prefer the pre-check above.

If both CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT and CURSOR_PLUGIN_ROOT are unset and slop-cop is not on $PATH (rare: running the skill outside both products and without a prior install), infer the plugin root from this SKILL.md's location: the plugin root is the directory two levels above this file (from skills/slop-cop-prose/SKILL.md, that's the repo root). Then run bash <plugin_root>/scripts/install-binary.sh the same way.

Loop

1. Draft. Write the prose the user asked for.

2. Check. Pipe the draft on stdin:

   printf '%s' "$DRAFT" | "$SLOP_COP" check --lang=markdown -
   

   slop-cop prints a JSON document of shape {"text_length": N, "violations": [...], "counts_by_rule": {...}, "counts_by_category": {...}, "lang": "markdown", "llm": {...}}.

   Pass --lang=markdown for prose drafts on stdin. LLM drafts are typically markdown-shaped (code fences, inline code, links, headings), and markdown mode masks those non-prose regions so detectors only see the actual writing. It is safe on plain prose. When checking a file path, slop-cop check article.md auto-picks the mode from the extension — .md / .markdown / .mdx → markdown, .html / .htm → html, .jsx / .tsx / .ts / .js → the matching tree-sitter mode (masks code so detectors only see comments, string literals, template quasis, and JSX text).

   Running inside Claude Code or Cursor, slop-cop detects the plugin environment ($CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT / $CURSOR_PLUGIN_ROOT) and the claude CLI and defaults --llm-effort=auto → high (both sentence and document tiers). The llm_effort + llm fields in the JSON report tell you what actually ran; if claude isn't reachable, those passes are reported as skipped with an error message and the client-side results are still returned. Pass --llm-effort=off (or --llm-effort=low for sentence-only) if you want to cut cost or speed for small edits.

3. Revise. Walk the violations array, prioritising these high-signal rules first. The canonical fix for each:

   Rule ID	Fix
   elevated-register	Replace utilize with use, commence with start, facilitate with help, demonstrate with show.
   filler-adverbs	Delete sentence-opening importantly, essentially, fundamentally, ultimately.
   hedge-stack	Keep at most one hedge per sentence; commit to the claim.
   em-dash-pivot	Replace the em-dash with the right punctuation (comma, colon, period, parentheses).
   negation-pivot	Rewrite not X, but Y as a direct positive claim.
   metaphor-crutch	Cut clichés like north star, game changer, deep dive, paradigm shift; say the thing plainly.
   important-to-note	Delete the phrase; just say the thing.
   throat-clearing	Delete the preamble paragraph entirely.
   sycophantic-frame	Delete the compliment.

   Each violation's matchedText tells you exactly what to change. On LLM-backed rules (the --llm / --llm-deep tiers), suggestedChange may propose a replacement; use it when present. For client-side rules, apply the canonical fix from the table above.

4. Loop. Re-run slop-cop check - on the revised draft. Stop when counts_by_rule is empty or the only remaining hits are intentional stylistic choices you can justify. Two to three passes usually suffices.

5. Deliver. Return the revised prose to the user. Do not paste the JSON report unless the user explicitly asks for it. Do not announce the loop ("I ran it through slop-cop…"); the point is that the result reads clean, not that the process happened.

Worked example

Draft the agent wrote (deliberately sloppy, to demonstrate what the skill catches):

In an era of rapid change, it is important to note that, ultimately, the tapestry of modern software — and this is a paradigm shift — demands robust collaboration.

slop-cop check - flags: era-opener, important-to-note, filler-adverbs (ultimately), overused-intensifiers (tapestry, paradigm, robust), metaphor-crutch (paradigm shift), em-dash-pivot.

Revision:

Modern software is built by teams, and teams need version control to stay sane.

Second pass: counts_by_rule: {}. Done. That's what the user sees.

Semantic tiers

Two LLM passes layer on top of the 35 client-side detectors, selected via --llm-effort=off|low|high|auto. auto is the default and resolves to high under the plugin, so usually you don't need to think about it.

Effort	Passes run	Extra rules caught
off	none	—
low	sentence tier (Claude Haiku)	balanced-take, unnecessary-elaboration, grandiose-stakes, empathy-performance, sycophantic-frame, throat-clearing, pivot-paragraph, historical-analogy, false-vulnerability, triple-construction
high	sentence + document (Haiku + Sonnet)	the low list + dead-metaphor, one-point-dilution, fractal-summaries

Sugar aliases: --llm ≡ --llm-effort=low, --llm-deep ≡ --llm-effort=high.

Both tiers shell out to claude -p --output-format json --json-schema .... If the claude CLI is missing or fails (no auth, rate limit, timeout), the auto-enabled pass is skipped rather than erroring; the client-side detector output is always returned. Inspect llm_effort and llm.sentence / llm.document in the JSON report to see what actually ran.