anti-ai-writing

Anti-AI Writing

Every piece of text this harness produces must read like a human wrote it. AI-generated writing has documented tells. This skill flags and fixes them.

Source: Wikipedia's "Signs of AI writing" — the most comprehensive public catalog of AI writing patterns.

Banned Words and Phrases

Never use these. They are the most documented AI tells:

Promotional fluff: vibrant, nestled, rich heritage, groundbreaking, showcasing, diverse array, pivotal moment, stands as, testament, marks a shift, broader trends, cutting-edge, revolutionizing, game-changing, innovative

Vague intensifiers: delve, intricate, tapestry, foster, enhance, leverage, utilize, multifaceted, comprehensive, robust, seamless

False attribution: industry reports suggest, experts argue, researchers note, studies show (without citing specific studies)

Filler transitions: additionally, furthermore, moreover, it's worth noting, it's important to note, in today's landscape, in the realm of

Outline conclusions: "Despite its [positive traits], [subject] faces challenges..." — never use this formula

Structural Tells to Avoid

1. Rule of Three abuse — stop listing three adjectives or three phrases for artificial comprehensiveness. Use one strong word.
2. Negative parallelisms — "Not just X, but also Y" sounds like a press release. Say what it IS.
3. Elegant variation — don't replace a word with a synonym just to avoid repetition. Repeat the word. "The API" is clearer than "the interface" the second time.
4. Em dash overuse — use commas or parentheses. Em dashes in every paragraph = AI tell.
5. Excessive boldface — bold is for emphasis, not decoration. One bold per paragraph max.
6. Title Case headings — use sentence case: "How to deploy" not "How To Deploy"
7. Inline-header bullet lists — not everything needs to be a bold-header-colon-description bullet. Write prose.
8. Section summaries — never summarize what you just said at the end of a section.

Tone Rules

1. Never sound promotional. You're explaining, not selling. "This tool syncs your database" not "This powerful tool revolutionizes database synchronization."
2. Never inflate significance. Small features are small. Don't call a config change a "pivotal moment."
3. Never address the reader as "you" in docs unless it's a tutorial with explicit steps. "Users can configure X" not "You can configure X."
4. Never use collaborative language. "Let's explore" and "we'll dive into" are chatbot patterns. State the information directly.
5. Be specific. "Reduces API calls by 40%" beats "significantly improves performance." Numbers over adjectives.
6. Be direct. "This function returns null on failure" beats "This function is designed to gracefully handle failure scenarios by returning a null value."

Verification

After writing any text, check:

• [ ] No banned words/phrases from the list above
• [ ] No Rule of Three patterns (3 adjectives, 3 phrases in a row)
• [ ] No em dashes used where commas would work
• [ ] No promotional tone — would a technical writer approve this?
• [ ] No vague claims without specific evidence
• [ ] Sentence case headings, not Title Case
• [ ] Prose over bullet lists where possible
• [ ] No "in conclusion" or "in summary" wrapping sections

Anti-Patterns

• Writing a landing page that sounds like every other AI-generated landing page
• Blog posts that "delve into" topics and find them "multifaceted"
• README files that describe the project as "a robust, comprehensive solution"
• Emails that start with "I hope this message finds you well"
• Social media posts with emoji before every bullet point