Stop Slop

Use these patterns as clarity heuristics, not grammar laws. Revise only when a change makes the text clearer without changing meaning, technical precision, quoted material, or the user's voice.

Scope

Apply this guidance to prose you are authoring for a human reader, including READMEs, ADRs, specs, PR descriptions, commit bodies, release notes, and long explanations.

Do not apply it mechanically to:

• code, identifiers, configuration, or logs;
• text the user wrote unless they asked for a rewrite;
• quotations, citations, error messages, and API or CLI output;
• fixed-format text whose convention requires a specific shape.

Accuracy wins. Keep a deliberate repetition, parallel structure, passive construction, adverb, or technical term when it carries meaning or matches the author's voice.