de-slop git:20260914.89f8008A

Immutable. This exact content is served forever at /api/v1/blob/76dc538b89fd1a8f.

---
name: de-slop
description: "Edit a finished external-facing draft for hollow content, formulaic AI prose, and readability while preserving facts and voice."
---

# De Slop

Read the whole draft and identify medium, audience, and intended voice. For longer drafts, consult [the tell catalog](references/SIGNS.md) and [prose guidance](references/PROSE.md).
Check substance before polishing: does the piece contain a concrete specific and a discernible point? If both are missing, return BLOCK with the real material needed. Otherwise remove filler, inflated significance, formulaic contrasts, boilerplate, vocabulary clusters, repetitive rhythm, and stray model citation artifacts. Judge patterns in context, not individual banned words.
Make the smallest effective edits. Preserve facts, numbers, names, quotes, promises, and meaningful uncertainty. Flag questionable claims instead of silently changing them. Re-read your own edits for clipped, over-clever prose and mixed registers. Keep structure appropriate to the medium.
Use an independent cold read when available and authorized, giving only the draft, audience, and medium. Otherwise perform a separate editorial pass and do not claim independence. Return `DE-SLOP: PASS (clean|edited)` with a short change log, or `DE-SLOP: BLOCK` with a diagnosis. Limit failed revision cycles to two. Ordinary conversational replies need no formal gate.