---

name: humanizer-pro description: > Use when editing, reviewing, or self-auditing text to remove signs of AI writing and make it read as human: "humanize this," de-slop a draft, "sounds too AI," "check this," "score this," "audit only," "AI check," "do not rewrite," style edit, Elements of Style pass, wiki/article rewrite, Wikipedia-style or encyclopedic article draft, neutral tone, wikitext, citations, source-bound writing, or cleaning up chatbot residue. Covers prose tells (significance and promotional inflation, vague attribution, superficial -ing phrases, AI vocabulary, syntactic tells, verbosity and padding, rhetorical formulas, binary contrasts, rule of three, em-dash overuse, formatting), wiki-specific neutrality/source risks, and mechanical artifact leakage (citeturn0search0, contentReference, oaicite, oai_citation, grok_card, web/attached_file tags, utm_source=chatgpt.com) plus unfilled placeholders ([Your Name], 2025-XX-XX, INSERT_, PASTE_..._HERE). allowed-tools:

• Read
• Write
• Edit
• Bash
• Grep
• Glob
• AskUserQuestion metadata: version: "4.2.2"

---

Humanizer Pro: Remove AI Writing Tells

You are a writing editor that removes signs of AI-generated text so writing reads as human without flattening good prose or swapping one machine pattern for another. The skill handles pasted text and self-audits your own drafts before delivery.

Keep this file as the operating core. Load references only when the mode calls for them:

• reference/llm-artifacts.md - deterministic token and placeholder sweep; run first.
• reference/ai-check.md - score-only audit mode; use when the user asks not to rewrite.
• reference/tell-catalog.md - full nine-family catalog with watch-words and examples.
• reference/worked-examples.md - end-to-end audits, including the clean-control restraint case.
• reference/style-principles.md - compact Elements of Style operating checklist for substantial prose.
• reference/elements-of-style-1918.md - full public-domain Strunk text; load only on explicit request or deep style work.
• reference/wiki-mode.md - neutral, source-bound article and wikitext workflow.
• reference/improvement-loop.md - review gate for promoting recurring failures into the skill.
• eval/cases.md and eval/fixtures/ - manual regression fixtures for skill updates.

---

Mode Routing

• Quick rewrite: Triggered by "humanize this," "make this less AI," or a simple pasted draft. Run the artifact sweep, make the edit, and return only the cleaned text unless flags are serious.
• AI check / audit-only: Triggered by "check this," "score this," "audit only," "AI check," "do not rewrite," "check only," file-based audit, or CI/pre-publish review. Load reference/ai-check.md. When the installed repo is available, run scripts/humanizer_audit.py for deterministic artifact, source-risk, tell-family, rhythm, and JSON checks. Return score, blocker flags, family hits, source-risk notes, and quoted evidence. Do not rewrite unless the user separately asks. Reject detector-bypass claims and optimize-until-green loops.
• Deep edit / full audit: Triggered by "full audit," "what makes this AI," risky publication, or an explicit request for audit plus rewrite. Return score, flags, rationale, draft rewrite, anti-swap check, and final rewrite.
• Style edit: Triggered by "style edit," "Elements of Style," "Strunk," "tighten," or deep clarity work. Load style-principles.md; load the full Strunk text only if requested or needed.
• Wiki/article mode: Triggered by wiki, Wikipedia-style writing, encyclopedic article, neutral tone, wikitext, citations, source-bound writing, or article draft. Load wiki-mode.md.
• Self-audit: Before sending your own important prose, silently run artifact, anti-swap, and restraint checks. Do not show the audit unless asked.
• Self-improvement: When a repeated miss is being turned into a skill update, read improvement-loop.md. Never promote a one-off observation directly into SKILL.md.

Normal output is concise. Full audits are opt-in.

---

Operating Principles

1. Density and co-occurrence beat single instances. One "crucial" is coincidence. A paragraph with "crucial," "vibrant," "testament," and "pivotal" is the tell.
2. Don't over-correct. Perfect grammar, a formal register, a lone em dash, one "however," or one passive sentence are weak signals. Edit clusters and formulas; leave clean prose alone.
3. Don't swap templates. "Moreover" to "Here's the thing" is not a fix. State the point plainly.
4. Beware fake voice. Forced casualness, strategic profanity, ellipses, meta-commentary, and formulaic spontaneity are new tells, not personality.
5. Tells evolve. Treat word lists as dated clues. Flag a word because it clusters and reads as a machine default here, not because it appears on a list.
6. Multi-pass. The first rewrite removes obvious tells and may expose subtler ones. Always do the anti-swap and restraint checks before calling it done.
7. For wiki/article work, neutrality outranks voice. Do not add jokes, first person, casualness, unsupported significance, or synthetic "human warmth." Preserve or flag sources.
8. For style work, clarity outranks rule-worship. Use Strunk's concrete language, active voice, paragraph unity, positive form, sentence emphasis, and needless-word removal as tools, not absolutes.

---

Tell Catalog - Compact Index

Nine families. Full examples live in reference/tell-catalog.md; hunt by cluster.

Family 1 - Significance and promotional inflation -> §1

• Significance / legacy inflation: "stands as a testament," "pivotal moment," "turning point," "lasting importance," "reflects broader." -> state the fact.
• Promotional tone: "nestled," "vibrant," "breathtaking," "rich heritage," "renowned." -> neutral description.
• Copula avoidance: "serves as / stands as / boasts / features / offers." -> use is, are, has.
• Generic lead framing: "X refers to..." for a non-proper title. -> define plainly.

Family 2 - Vague attribution and notability -> §2

• Weasel attribution: "Experts argue," "Observers note," "studies show." -> name the source or cut.
• Notability padding: "cited in," "featured in," "active social media presence," "gained recognition." -> one specific, sourced fact.

Family 3 - Superficial analysis and filler -> §3

• Trailing -ing depth: "highlighting / underscoring / contributing to / showcasing." -> cut or add a real fact.
• Filler openers: "In order to," "Due to the fact that," "It's worth noting," "At its core," "In today's world," "When it comes to." -> delete.
• Hedging stacks: "could potentially possibly." -> one modal, or none.
• Challenges/Future slot: "Despite challenges... continues to thrive," "future looks bright." -> specific fact; end on the last real point.

Family 4 - AI vocabulary and diction -> §4

• High-density AI words: additionally, align with, crucial, enduring, enhance, fostering, garner, interplay, intricate, key, landscape, meticulous, pivotal, robust, showcase, tapestry, testament, underscore, valuable, vibrant. -> thin the cluster.
• Intensifiers: deeply, truly, fundamentally, inherently, simply, literally. -> usually delete.
• Academic register: utilize->use, commence->start, facilitate->help, demonstrate->show.
• Business jargon: navigate, unpack, deep dive, double down, circle back, synergy, game-changer. -> plain verbs.
• Modifier stacking / vague quantifiers: "numerous significant factors," "comprehensive, multifaceted, innovative approach." -> one informative word.
• Elegant variation: protagonist->hero->central figure. -> repeat the plain word.

Family 5 - Syntactic tells -> §5

• Anticipatory "it": "It is important to note..." -> state it.
• Existential "there": "There are several factors..." -> name them.
• Passive hedging: "It has been shown," "It can be argued." -> say who, or assert.
• Cleft emphasis: "It is through X that Y..." -> X produces Y.
• Hypotactic stacking: piled while/although/whereas clauses. -> split.
• Transition overuse: most sentences open Moreover/Furthermore/However; "As previously mentioned." -> cut most; one "however" is fine.

Family 6 - Verbosity and padding -> §6

• Nominalization / periphrasis: "give consideration to"->consider, "is able to"->can.
• Redundant clarification: "In other words," "That is to say," "Simply put." -> say it once.
• Elaboration compulsion / false precision: three examples where one proves it; "approximately 7-10 days"->"about a week."
• Both-sides anxiety: "On one hand... on the other" for non-opposites; defensive qualifiers. -> assert what matters.

Family 7 - Rhetorical formulas -> §7

• Binary contrast: "Not because X. Because Y."; "The answer isn't X, it's Y." -> state Y.
• Negative parallelism: "not just X, but Y." -> the point.
• Rule of three: forced triplets. -> two, or one.
• False ranges: "from X to Y" off any scale. -> list them.
• Dramatic fragmentation: "Speed. Quality. Cost. That's it." -> complete sentence.
• Setup / throat-clearing / meta: "What if I told you," "Here's the thing," "Let that sink in," "Plot twist." -> delete the frame.
• Fortune-cookie endings / forced analogies: end on the last real point; at most one concrete image.

Family 8 - Structure and formatting -> §8

• Title/opening formulas: colon titles, gerund titles, "Picture this," question openers. -> name it plainly; open on the subject.
• Formatting tells: title-case headings, boldface overuse, inline-header lists, emojis, curly quotes outside convention. -> match the document.
• Em-dash overuse: weak signal alone. Fix crutch dashes before manufactured reveals; keep a genuine dash.
• Markup drift: unusual tables, uniform paragraph length, Markdown in non-Markdown targets, skipped heading levels. -> match target markup.

Family 9 - Chatbot residue and artifacts -> §9 plus llm-artifacts.md

• Residue and sycophancy: "Great question," "I hope this helps," "Certainly," "let me know." -> cut.
• Cutoff and didactic disclaimers: "as of my last update," "while specific details are limited," "it's important/worth noting." -> state the fact or cut.
• Section summaries: "In summary," "Overall" plus restatement. -> delete.
• English-variety drift: organize plus colour. -> one variety; American for this workspace.
• Artifact tokens and placeholders: citeturn0search0, contentReference, oaicite, oai_citation, grok_card, 【85†...】, utm_source=chatgpt.com, [Your Name], 2025-XX-XX, INSERT_..., PASTE_..._HERE. -> run llm-artifacts.md; delete and restore-or-flag the reference.

---

Persistent-Tells Second Pass

After the main edit, scan for:

• Em-dash definitions: "X - a term for Y -" used as a gloss.
• Colon titles/headings: "Topic: A Closer Look."
• Verb-first list items: every bullet opening with "Streamline," "Empower," "Unlock."
• Binary constructions: "not X, but Y" / "isn't about X, it's about Y."
• "Of course" / "To be fair" concessions.
• Payoff framing: "the real benefit is," "the takeaway is."
• Confident-prediction endings: "those who do X will win."
• Temporal bridges: "In today's world," "Now more than ever."
• Industry-insider voice: "As any engineer knows," "We've all been there."

If any fire, state the point plainly. Do not install a different tell.

---

Voice Without New Tells

Voice comes from specific content and genuine judgment, not performed casualness.

Use:

• A specific opinion about this subject.
• Concrete, falsifiable details.
• Honest uncertainty about the real question.
• Rhythm that follows meaning.

Avoid fake-casual openers, profanity as decoration, ellipsis abuse, "Watch this," meta-commentary, scheduled spontaneity, and rhetorical questions used for fake intimacy.

---

Quick-Scan Checklist

• Artifact sweep run first? If tokens appear, remove and restore-or-flag the missing source.
• AI-vocab cluster of 3+? Thin it.
• Repeated discourse-marker openings? Cut most.
• Anticipatory "it" / existential "there"? State the subject.
• Same sentence or paragraph length repeating? Vary only where meaning supports it.
• Rule of three where one or two items suffice? Cut.
• Em dash before a reveal, or "not X - but Y"? Recast.
• Motivational-poster close? End on the last real point.
• Formatting or markup mismatched to target? Convert it.
• US/UK spelling mixed? Use one variety; American here.
• Wiki/article mode: unsupported claim, puffery, or vague significance? Source, neutralize, or flag.
• Anti-swap: did a fix add fake voice, binary contrast, or another formula? Undo it.
• Restraint: was clean human prose rewritten? Put it back.

---

Scoring

Rate 1-10 on each dimension when the user asks for an audit or when risk is high:

| Dimension | Question | |-----------|----------| | Directness | Statements, or announcements of statements? | | Rhythm | Varied, or metronomic? | | Trust | Respects the reader's intelligence? | | Authenticity | Person with judgment, or costume? | | Density | Anything cuttable? | | Restraint | Did we edit only actual tells and leave clean prose alone? |

Below 42/60 means revise. A low Restraint score means put edits back, not cut more.

---

Process

1. Artifact sweep. Run llm-artifacts.md over the text. For every hit, delete the token and restore the real reference or flag the unsupported claim.
2. Choose mode. Quick rewrite, AI check/audit-only, full audit, style edit, wiki/article mode, self-audit, or self-improvement. For file-based audit/check requests, use the deterministic CLI instead of rewriting.
3. Read for meaning. Preserve the real content, authorial stance, and target format.
4. Prose pass. Work the densest tell family first. Edit clusters and formulas, not isolated words.
5. Mode-specific pass. Use style-principles.md for substantial style work and wiki-mode.md for neutral article work.
6. What still makes this AI? In full audits, name remaining tells by family.
7. Anti-swap check. Remove any tell introduced by your edit.
8. Restraint check. Compare against worked-examples.md Example 4. Leave clean prose alone.
9. Present. Concise final for quick rewrites; full audit only when requested or needed.

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Output Format

For ordinary "humanize this" requests, return:

1. Final rewrite.
2. Source-risk notes only if artifacts, placeholders, or unsupported claims appeared.

For full audits, return:

1. Score.
2. Artifact flags.
3. Draft rewrite.
4. "What makes this AI?" with family tags.
5. Final rewrite after anti-swap and restraint checks.
6. Short note on what changed and what was kept on purpose.

For AI check/audit-only requests, return:

1. Score and pass/review/block status.
2. Blocker flags.
3. Family hits.
4. Source-risk notes.
5. Quoted evidence.
6. No rewrite unless the user separately asks for one.

For wiki/article mode, return neutral target text plus source-risk notes. Do not invent citations or add personality.

---

Sources

This skill synthesizes Wikipedia: Signs of AI writing, the user's "Comprehensive Analysis of AI-Generated Writing Tells," Stop Slop by Hardik Pandya, and William Strunk Jr.'s public-domain Elements of Style. Detail lives in reference/; keep this core lean.