unslop — Strip AI Writing Patterns via CLI

Overview

unslop is a CLI tool that post-processes text to remove AI writing patterns programmatically. Unlike skills that ask the agent to avoid AI-isms, unslop runs as a deterministic pipeline step: pipe text in, get clean text out. Use it as a final pass before committing docs, publishing posts, or sending any AI-generated content to production.

The --deterministic flag makes output reproducible — same input always produces same output. The --stdin flag reads from stdin, enabling shell pipeline composition.

When to Use This Skill

When you have AI-generated text ready to publish and want a final cleanup pass
When working in a shell pipeline where text quality needs to be enforced automatically
When writing commit hooks or CI steps that validate content before it ships
When you need reproducible text normalization across multiple runs

Setup

Install once:

pipx install unslop
# or
uv tool install unslop

Verify:

unslop --version

How It Works

Step 1: Pipe Text Through unslop

Standard cleanup (may vary slightly between runs):

echo "This leverages cutting-edge AI to deliver robust solutions." | unslop --stdin

Deterministic cleanup (same input → same output every run):

echo "This leverages cutting-edge AI to deliver robust solutions." | unslop --stdin --deterministic

Step 2: Use in Shell Pipelines

Pipe the output of any command through unslop:

cat draft.md | unslop --stdin --deterministic > clean.md

Or chain with other tools:

cat draft.md | unslop --stdin --deterministic | pbcopy   # macOS: copy clean text to clipboard

Step 3: Integrate into Commit Hooks or CI

Add to a pre-commit hook or CI step to enforce quality gates on any generated content before it ships:

# In .git/hooks/pre-commit or a CI script
CONTENT=$(cat docs/changelog.md)
CLEANED=$(echo "$CONTENT" | unslop --stdin --deterministic)
if [ "$CONTENT" != "$CLEANED" ]; then
  echo "Changelog contains AI writing patterns. Run: cat docs/changelog.md | unslop --stdin --deterministic > docs/changelog.md"
  exit 1
fi

Examples

Example 1: Clean a Draft Document

cat blog-post-draft.md | unslop --stdin --deterministic > blog-post-final.md

Example 2: Inline Cleanup During Writing

# Write content, pipe through unslop, write result back
cat README.md | unslop --stdin > README.clean.md && mv README.clean.md README.md

Example 3: Validate Before Submitting a PR

# Check if any generated docs need cleanup
for f in docs/*.md; do
  ORIGINAL=$(cat "$f")
  CLEANED=$(echo "$ORIGINAL" | unslop --stdin --deterministic)
  [ "$ORIGINAL" != "$CLEANED" ] && echo "Needs cleanup: $f"
done

Best Practices

✅ Use --deterministic in CI and automation to ensure reproducible output
✅ Run on the final draft, not intermediate iterations
✅ Combine with the avoid-ai-writing skill for both generation-time guidance and post-processing
❌ Don't run on code files — unslop targets prose, not source code
❌ Don't skip review after unslop: automated cleanup can occasionally change meaning; read the output

Limitations

Processes prose only — not code, JSON, or structured data
Does not catch factual errors or substantive writing issues
Some replacements may not fit every context; review the output before publishing
Requires Python tooling such as pipx or uv for standalone CLI installation

Security & Safety Notes

unslop reads from stdin and writes to stdout — no file system side effects by default
--deterministic mode is local and does not make LLM API calls
Default LLM mode may use ANTHROPIC_API_KEY or the Claude CLI; use --deterministic for sensitive local files and CI gates
Safe to run in CI pipelines and commit hooks when pinned to deterministic mode

Unslop