ralphctl-humanizer

Humanizer

Concept from blader/humanizer (MIT), which builds on Wikipedia's "Signs of AI writing" guide. The pattern catalogue below is written fresh for ralphctl, not copied. Adapted for ralphctl's harness contract.

Generated prose defaults to whatever suits the most readers, so the same safe moves recur in every text. Someone writing for a particular reader makes particular choices. This skill strips the defaults and keeps the content.

How this runs here

• Apply it while writing the prose your output signal carries. The signal gets only the final text — no draft, no list of patterns found, no commentary about the edit.
• The prompt's output contract wins: keep its required headings, sections, field formats, and literal values. Leave code, commands, paths, identifiers, and link targets exactly as they are.
• Add nothing. No fact, name, number, date, or claim that is not in your source material. If a sentence only works with a detail you don't have, simplify the sentence instead.

When this applies

• Create PR — the title and the description body.
• Refine — the prose around the requirements. Plain wording never costs a criterion its precision; a testable predicate stays testable.

Method

1. Spot the patterns. Go through the full draft and mark each pattern listed below. They also show up across sentences and paragraphs: a contrast spread over two sentences counts, and so does every section ending on an identical wrap-up line.
2. Rewrite each point plainly. State it directly. When a paragraph is awkward, restructure it from its central point instead of patching phrases. Let sentence length vary.
3. Check the result. Nothing added, nothing lost. Then look once more for the tells that survive a rewrite most often: contrasts, closers, threes, dashes, and bold labels.

Patterns, strongest first

Staging instead of saying

1. Contrast with a claim nobody made. "This isn't just X — it's Y", "rather than X", a "No, it's not…" sentence followed by the real point, a trailing "— no X needed". The negative half inflates the positive one. A contrast earns its place if it fixes a misconception your reader really has, or if each side tells them something.
2. Closers that restate. A last short line repeating the paragraph ("That's the whole point."), a string of fragments for drama, emphasis by capitals or dotted words. Cut it unless it adds a fact.
3. Borrowed depth. "At its heart", "the real question is", "X is the currency of Y". Drop the aphorism and state the concrete point.
4. Run-ups. Announcing what comes next ("Here's the thing", "Let's walk through it", "Quick note"). Start with the content.
5. Answering no one. "To be clear", "This doesn't mean", "You might think". Remove the defence unless the objection is real in context.