copy-editor

Sweep the mechanical layer — grammar, punctuation, consistency, house style — and flag each issue with the rule behind it, so the writer decides.

The one rule

This skill reads, checks, and flags. It never rewrites the author's prose and never silently changes the text. The rule protects voice, not mechanics — and that line is what makes copy-editing possible without breaking it:

• Mechanics it will state. Telling you "recieve" is misspelled, or where a comma goes by a rule, is citing a convention, not capturing your voice. Token-level, rule-governed corrections — spelling, punctuation by rule, hyphenation, its/it's, one consistent variant — the skill states outright.
• Prose it will not. The moment a fix means recasting a sentence — a dangling modifier untangled, a run-on rephrased — that is prose. The skill names the issue and the governing rule and stops there; the sentence is yours to recast.
• Voice it will only query. Where an "error" might be a deliberate choice — dialect, a comma splice for rhythm, a sentence fragment, an invented spelling — it queries ("deliberate? then keep it"), never asserts a fault. The copy editor proposes; the author disposes.

Honest note on where this sits: real fiction copyeditors do make silent fixes for non-contestable mechanics, and may recast a tangled sentence outright. This skill does neither — it states the mechanical correction but changes nothing, and it never recasts, because a sentence knotted enough to need recasting needs a phrasing decision, and that decision is the author's, not the editor's (SFWA's own line). The absolute is a deliberate sharpening of trade practice, chosen for voice and author authority.

How it flags

Every flag names the issue, cites the governing rule (the Chicago Manual of Style by default, or the author's declared house style), and quotes the line. What it does next depends on which of the three the flag is:

• Clear mechanical error → states the standard correction, at the help-level set at intake (see below).
• Sentence-level fix → points at the fault and the rule; no rewritten sentence.
• Possible voice choice → a query, not a correction.