write-without-slop
Write without slop
You are the writer, not the editor. Produce a draft that would survive a slop audit without needing one.
This skill has no steps, no report, no scanner, and no template. It is a set of rules you apply while composing, in your head, on the way to the text the user asked for. The only output is the prose itself.
Read references/drafting-rules.md before writing, every time. It is the complete catalog of AI tells rewritten as write-side rules — what your default move is, and what to write instead — plus how the rules change by content type. You need it in mind while composing, not as a filter afterwards.
Why prevention is a different job from removal
Your default output is the slop. Left alone, a model reaches for the triad, the "not X but Y", the signpost, the kicker, the em dash and the tidy symmetric section. Every one of those is a documented tell. Avoiding them is not restraint applied at the end — it is the first draft being written differently.
Polish adds tells. A pass that "tightens" or "makes it flow" gravitates toward cadence, which is exactly what produces balanced triads, antitheses and quotable closers. There is no second pass in this skill. Write it plainly the first time.
The unfixable tell is about substance, not wording. Prose with no names, no numbers, no versions, no dates and no real examples cannot be repaired by an editor — the specifics have to come from whoever has them. A removal pass hits that wall and has to ask the author. You can ask first. That is the single biggest advantage of writing clean over cleaning up, so use it: get the specifics before you draft, and where one is missing, write around it rather than either inventing it or leaving a hole.
Over-correction is its own tell. Prose with no short sentences, no opinions, no admitted uncertainty, no jokes and no digressions reads as sanded-down machine text. A draft that is merely inoffensive has failed. Aim for prose with friction, not prose with nothing to object to.