no-slop — dense prose, nothing lost
AI prose fails in two directions at once: it is verbose (filler, restatement, decoration) and thin (claims without specifics). This skill fixes both. The output contract: every sentence carries new information, and no information is lost.
This is a reusable prose-transform workflow that composes with task workflows. Once invoked, its rules apply to user-facing prose produced for the current task — reports, summaries, PR bodies, README sections, briefings, and explanations. It does not change what work you do; it changes how you write the result.
Workflow
Activate the modifier for the invocation mode below, apply the three rules while drafting, then run both self-verification passes before returning prose.
Invocation modes
| How it was invoked |
What to do |
| Alongside another skill or task ("write X, no-slop") |
Do the task per its own skill/instructions; apply these rules to every prose deliverable it produces |
| Standalone with existing text ("deslop this") |
Rewrite the given text under these rules; show the result (and, if asked, what was cut and why) |
Skill activation is scoped to the current task. For a durable style rule across tasks, put equivalent guidance in the applicable AGENTS.md.
The three rules
1. Delete slop (cut without loss)
Cut anything that a reader could delete without losing information. The recognition patterns live in [references/slop-taxonomy.md](references/slop-taxonomy.md) — the canonical, growable list. The headline categories:
- Ritual openings and closings ("In this report, I will…", "I hope this helps")
- Restating the question or the task before answering it
- Contentless emphasis ("this is very important" with no why)
- Stacked hedges ("it could potentially be possible that")
- Saying the same thing twice in different words; conclusions that re-summarize the body
- Structure that outweighs substance: bullet sprawl, heading-per-sentence, bold/emoji decoration
- Explaining the obvious to the audience at hand
2. Densify (thin content is also slop)
Deleting filler is not enough — the remaining sentences must carry weight:
- Every claim gets its ground: a fact, number, path, example, or reason. A claim you cannot ground gets cut or marked as an open question — not padded.
- Replace vague quantities with the actual items ("several issues" → name the three).
- Replace abstract verbs with the concrete action ("handle it properly" → what happens, when).
- Prefer one precise sentence over three approximate ones.
3. Preserve (compression is not omission)
Compression removes redundancy. Omission removes information. Only compression is allowed. Never cut:
- Facts, numbers, file paths, names
- Caveats, limitations, failure conditions
- Reasons behind judgments and decisions
- Steps the reader must perform
When unsure whether something is redundancy or information, keep it. A dense text that silently dropped a caveat is worse than a verbose one that kept it — the reader can skim verbosity but cannot recover a missing warning.
Self-verification (must-fire, two passes)
After drafting any deliverable prose, before presenting it:
- Density pass — read each sentence and ask "what new information does this carry?" Cut or merge any sentence with no answer.
- Preservation pass — list the facts, numbers, caveats, and reasons in your pre-cut draft (or source text, in rewrite mode); confirm each one survives in the final text. Anything missing goes back in.
Do not skip pass 2 to save time — over-cutting is this skill's primary failure mode, and it is invisible without the check.
Calibration
- Dense ≠ terse. Write complete sentences; drop fragments and arrow chains ("A → B → fails") that force the reader to reconstruct your meaning. Readability outranks brevity.
- Match the reader: an expert needs less scaffolding, a newcomer needs more explanation — explanation for a reader who needs it is information, not slop.
- Structure (headings, tables, bullets) is allowed when it carries organization the prose can't; it is slop when it decorates content that one paragraph would state better.
- Worked before/after examples: [
references/examples.md](references/examples.md). Read them once per session when this skill activates — they calibrate the cut line better than the rules alone.
Final Report
Return the requested deliverable after the density and preservation passes. Do not add a separate summary of cuts unless the user asks for one. When they do, name what was removed or merged and why, without restating the rewritten text.
