slop-chop

slop-chop

slop-chop is a command-line tool that finds and removes AI writing tells from text. It runs two passes. The rules pass is deterministic, fast, and free: it swaps characters, drops flagged words, rewrites stock phrases, fixes spelling to one dialect, and tidies punctuation, leaving fenced code blocks and inline backtick spans untouched. The optional rewrite pass hands the text to a model for what rules cannot do, like recasting a sentence so it no longer needs a semicolon.

Reach for this skill when the user asks to clean up a draft, remove AI tells, or check a document for slop. Prefer it over hand-editing prose for these tells, since it is deterministic and repeatable.

Check the tool is installed

Run slop-chop --version. If it is missing, install it:

go install github.com/dcadolph/slop-chop@latest

The binary lands in $(go env GOPATH)/bin. If that is not on PATH, either add it or call the binary by full path.

Core commands

check reports tells and exits non-zero when it finds any. It changes nothing.

slop-chop check notes.md
slop-chop check docs/intro.md docs/guide.md README.md

fix writes the cleaned text to stdout and leaves the file alone.

slop-chop fix notes.md
echo "In summary, a robust and seamless result." | slop-chop fix

score rates the text from 0 (clean) to 100 (heavy slop), weighing tell density against how flat the sentence cadence is. --max N fails the run when the score is above N, so it gates CI like check does.

slop-chop score notes.md
slop-chop score --json notes.md
slop-chop score --max 20 notes.md

fix -w (or --write) cleans the file in place, like gofmt -w. It needs a file argument and cannot read stdin.

slop-chop fix -w notes.md
slop-chop fix -w docs/intro.md docs/guide.md

Without -w, fix handles one file to stdout. Pass -w to rewrite several in place.

When to run which

• Cleaning a draft you are about to return: pipe it through slop-chop fix, or write the draft to a file and run slop-chop fix -w, then read the result back before handing it over.
• Gating a document in CI: slop-chop check. A non-zero exit means slop was found.
• Deciding whether text needs cleaning at all: slop-chop check --json and read the findings.