slop-chop

README

slop-chop

Chop the slop. Paste in text and get back something that reads like a person wrote it.

AI writing leaves fingerprints. It runs on em-dashes, drops a semicolon into every other sentence, reaches for words like comprehensive and substrate, and clears its throat with openers like "In summary" or "Giving it to you honestly." slop-chop pulls all of that out in a single pass. You can also hand it your own list of things to cut, so the result reads like you instead of a chatbot.

Why

Cleaning this up by hand is tedious, and asking the model to "stop using em-dashes" holds for about three sentences before it forgets. slop-chop just takes the text and cleans it, the same way every time.

How it works

There are two passes, and you can run either one on its own.

The first is a rules pass. It is fast and deterministic. It swaps characters, drops words you have flagged, rewrites stock phrases and words, runs your own patterns, fixes spelling to one dialect, and tidies the punctuation, with no model, no cost, and the same output on every run. It knows markdown, so fenced code blocks and inline backtick spans come through untouched.

The second is an optional rewrite pass that hands the text to a model for the things rules cannot manage, like reworking a sentence so it no longer needs a semicolon, or nudging the writing toward a voice you picked.

Install

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

Or clone and build:

git clone git@github.com:dcadolph/slop-chop.git
cd slop-chop
go install .

Usage

# Print the cleaned text to stdout. Your file is not changed.
slop-chop fix notes.md

# Clean the file in place, like gofmt -w.
slop-chop fix -w notes.md

# Pipe text through it
echo "In summary, a robust—and seamless—result." | slop-chop fix

# Flag slop without changing anything (exits non-zero if it finds any)
slop-chop check notes.md

# Check or fix several files at once
slop-chop check docs/intro.md docs/guide.md README.md
slop-chop fix -w docs/intro.md docs/guide.md

# Enforce a spelling variant: flag or fix the other dialect
slop-chop check --dialect american notes.md
slop-chop fix --dialect british notes.md

# Overlay a built-in pack, like corporate phrasing to plain English
slop-chop fix --preset plain notes.md

# Use your own profile
slop-chop fix --profile myprofile.json notes.md

# Get findings as JSON for other tools to read
slop-chop check --json notes.md
slop-chop check --json --pretty notes.md

# Deeper clean: rules first, then a model rewrite (needs ANTHROPIC_API_KEY)
slop-chop fix --rewrite notes.md
slop-chop fix --rewrite --verify notes.md

check --json prints a {"findings": [...]} object to stdout, and fix --json adds the cleaned text as {"cleaned": "...", "findings": [...]}. Each finding carries the rule, the matched text, the suggested replacement, and a line and column.

Modes

• check flags what it finds and exits non-zero. Drop it in CI.
• fix writes the cleaned text to stdout and leaves your file alone. Pass -w to change the file in place instead.
• score rates the text from 0 to 100 on how much it reads like AI wrote it.

Score

score gives a single number from 0 for clean to 100 for heavy slop. It weighs the density of rule tells against how flat the sentence cadence is, since an even, machine-like rhythm is a tell no word list catches.

slop-chop score notes.md            # prints a number like 42
slop-chop score --json notes.md     # {"value":42,"tells":7,"words":210,...}
slop-chop score --max 20 notes.md   # exit non-zero when the score is above 20

--max turns it into a gate, so a document over the bar fails a build the same way check does.

Structural tells

Word swaps catch the vocabulary of AI writing. The rules pass also flags a few structural tells that a word list misses, like the it's not just X, it's Y and not only X but also Y cadence, the let's dive in opener, and here's the thing throat-clearing. These are flagged, not rewritten, since the fix depends on the whole sentence and is left to the rewrite pass. Add your own with the flagPatterns field in a profile.

Use it in CI

Add a workflow that fails a pull request when it finds slop:

name: slop-chop
on: pull_request
jobs:
  slop:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: dcadolph/slop-chop@v0.9.1
        with:
          files: docs/intro.md docs/guide.md
          # profile: myprofile.json   # optional
          # dialect: american         # optional
          # preset: plain             # optional

Or have it fix the files and push the cleanup back to the pull request branch:

name: slop-chop
on: pull_request
jobs:
  slop:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: write
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          ref: ${{ github.head_ref }}
      - uses: dcadolph/slop-chop@v0.9.1
        with:
          files: docs/intro.md docs/guide.md
          mode: fix
          commit: "true"
          # message: Chop the slop   # optional commit message

Use it as a Claude Code plugin

slop-chop ships a Claude Code plugin so the assistant can run the CLI for you. The repo is its own marketplace. Add it, then install the plugin:

/plugin marketplace add dcadolph/slop-chop
/plugin install slop-chop@slop-chop

The plugin brings a slop-chop skill that teaches Claude when to reach for the tool, and a /slop-chop command that cleans a file or pasted text on demand. It calls the slop-chop binary, so install that first with go install. The rewrite pass still needs ANTHROPIC_API_KEY and stays off unless you ask for it.

Profiles and presets

A profile is a JSON file that lists what to cut and what to put in its place: characters, phrases, words, regular expressions, a blacklist, and a few switches. Point the tool at one with --profile, or drop a .slop-chop.json in the directory you run from and it gets picked up on its own. With neither, a built-in default runs.

Presets are curated packs you overlay with --preset. The built-in packs are plain, corporate, academic, and marketing. --preset plain turns corporate phrasing into plain English on top of whatever profile you already have, and the others target the stock phrasing of their own worlds. Overlay more than one with a comma: --preset corporate,plain.

docs/PROFILE.md is the full reference: every field, the presets, the spelling dialects, the allow list, and the inline ignore directives.

Rewrite pass (optional)

The rules pass is deterministic and free. For the work rules cannot do, like reworking a sentence so it no longer needs a semicolon or bending the text toward your voice, add --rewrite. It runs the rules first, then hands the result to a model. It needs ANTHROPIC_API_KEY and costs money, so it stays off by default.

export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-...
slop-chop fix --rewrite notes.md
slop-chop fix --rewrite --verify notes.md

The reply is checked before you get it. The rules run over it again, its code blocks and load-bearing tokens are compared against your input, and --verify adds a model pass that flags a change in meaning. ENGINE.md covers the rewrite and its checks in full.

Backends

The rewrite pass defaults to Anthropic, but --provider openai points it at any OpenAI-compatible Chat Completions API using OPENAI_API_KEY. With --base-url you can aim that at a local server, so the rewrite runs on your own machine with no key and no cost.

# OpenAI
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-... slop-chop fix --rewrite --provider openai --model gpt-4o notes.md

# Local Ollama, no key, no bill
slop-chop fix --rewrite --provider openai --base-url http://localhost:11434/v1 \
  --model llama3.1 notes.md

Using a different vendor to rewrite than the one that wrote the draft is a good idea, since a model is bad at spotting its own tics.

Docs

• docs/PROFILE.md is the profile and preset reference.
• ENGINE.md is how the engine works: the rule kinds, the order they run in, and the rewrite pass in detail.

Status

Still early, but the core is in place. The rules pass is built and working. The rewrite pass is built too and sits behind the --rewrite flag, because it needs an API key and costs money, so the free, predictable rules pass stays the default. The live rewrite path has a key-gated integration test, kept out of the default build so it never spends money by accident. Run it against the real API with an API key:

ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-... go test -tags=integration ./internal/rewrite/ -run Live -v

License

MIT. See LICENSE.