Unslop Skill

Apply to Markdown you create or revise. Read and follow prose-principles for the sentences, then apply the document rules below.

Out of scope: code, code comments, test names, quoted text, and text you were not asked to change. Structure, pointers, and completion criteria in agent-facing documents belong to writing-for-agents.

Process

1. Write it clean. A cleanup pass afterwards catches less than not generating the sentence in the first place.
2. Before delivering, apply every prose-principles rule to the sentences, then the Formatting and Mechanics rules below to the file.
3. Match the surrounding document: its heading case, its terminology, its formality. Local consistency beats this skill's preferences.

Formatting

• Plain characters. No em dash, en dash, curly quote, or ellipsis character: typography is the clearest tell there is. Write -, straight quotes, ..., and -> for an arrow. Reaching for parentheses in place of an em dash trades one tell for another, so end the sentence or use a comma. A section mark in a cross-reference (agent-conduct § Git Safety) is fine.
• Colons. Fine before a list or an example. Not as a mid-sentence connector.
• Bold sparingly. Not on every proper noun. A bold label that names an item and is followed by new detail is fine. A label that restates the line after it is the tell.
• No decorative emoji.

Mechanics

Every markdown file this repo writes:

• Wraps Markdown prose at 80 columns. Code blocks and frontmatter are exempt. Apply writing-for-agents when editing skill frontmatter.
• Carries no placeholder text: no TODO, no TBD, no unfinished section.
• Has no trailing whitespace and no consecutive blank lines.
• Names a language on every fenced code block.
• Has one h1, no skipped heading levels, and internal references that resolve.

Append-only workflow ledgers, such as .docs/bugfixes/*.md, may consist of checklist entries without an h1. All other mechanics still apply.

Specs and phase plans are stricter still: ASCII only, per spec-author.