• Cut every word that does no work. If the sentence survives without a word, the word goes. "In order to" is "to". "It is important to note that" is nothing.
• Use the short, everyday word. "Use", not "utilize". "Help", not "facilitate". "Do", not "perform". A long word has to buy its length with precision.
• When a rule makes a sentence worse, fix the sentence another way or leave it alone. The rules serve the reader. A sentence that follows every rule and sounds like a machine wrote it has failed.

unslop

• Mix sentence lengths on purpose. Short sentences land a point. Longer ones that take their time carry a fact with its condition or consequence.
• One thought per sentence does not mean one length per sentence. Split the sentence that carries two thoughts. Keep the long sentence that carries one.
• Have a view where the mode allows it. Explanation weighs trade-offs, so say what you make of them instead of listing pros and cons. Reference stays dry.
• Be specific over sterile. Not "schema changes can cause issues" but "a column rename fails the build".

• Action + learning: tutorial.
• Action + work: how-to.
• Understanding + work: reference.
• Understanding + learning: explanation.

• Talk to the reader as "you", in the present tense. "Will" only for things that genuinely happen later.
• Say who does what: "the compiler checks", not "is checked". Passive is fine only when the actor is unknown or beside the point.
• Write instructions as commands: "Click Submit." State facts plainly. Never "should be done".
• Put the condition before the instruction: "To delete the document, click Delete." The reader skips what does not apply.
• Put the common case first. Exceptions after.
• Sound like a knowledgeable friend. No buzzwords, no figurative language, no "please" in instructions, and never "simply", "easy", or "quickly" in a procedure. If it were simple, the reader would not be here.
• Don't pre-announce ("we will soon support...") and don't start consecutive sentences with the same phrase.
• Link with words that say where the link goes: the page title or a short description. Never "click here". Prefer a sentence of context on the page over a link off it.
• Headings carry the point, not just the topic ("Pick the mode first", not "Modes"). Sentence case. A task heading is a bare verb phrase ("Create an instance"). A concept heading is a noun phrase. One h1 per page, no skipped levels.
• Numbered lists for sequences, bullets for everything else. Introduce a list with a complete sentence. Keep items parallel.
• Code goes in code font. UI elements go in bold. Use serial commas. Drop "etc." and say up front that a list is partial.

• One instruction per sentence. One thought per sentence everywhere else.
• Split instructions longer than about 20 words and other sentences longer than about 25.
• Put the warning or condition before the step it guards: "If hot oil touches your skin, injuries can occur."
• Keep "the" and "a": "Remove backup file" reads two ways. "Remove the backup file" reads one.
• Give each word one meaning and one job, then keep it. If "check" means inspect, don't also use it for restrain.
• Pick one word per action and stick to it: "start", not "start" here and "initiate" there.
• Write procedures as direct commands, never as narration and never in the passive: "Install the component", not "the component must be installed".
• Avoid "-ing" words where you can. They take too many grammatical jobs and breed misreadings.

• Keep words like "only" and "not" next to the word they change: "only fails on growth" and "fails only on growth" say different things.
• Break up long noun strings: "the proto import budget check script" becomes "the script that checks the proto-import budget".
• Make every "it", "they", and "this" point at one obvious thing. Repeat the noun when in doubt. Never use "this" or "which" to point at a whole clause.
• Don't drop verbs: "Phase 1 moves the converters and Phase 2 the runtime" leaves Phase 2 without one. Give it one.
• Keep the small words that show structure. "Ensure that the switch is off" keeps "that" because it makes the sentence parse one way. Never trade clarity for word count.
• Repeat the article in a series when it prevents a misread: "the client and the host", not "the client and host", when they are two things.
• Say which parts "and" or "or" joins when a sentence can group two ways. "Both...and", "either...or", and "if...then" are free disambiguators.
• Use periods, not semicolons. Replace an em dash with a new sentence.
• Make text in parentheses a full grammatical unit or its own sentence. Never form plurals with "(s)".
• No slashes: write "a, b, or both" instead of "a/b" or "and/or".
• Call each thing by one name, everywhere. A doc that says "the gate", "the ratchet", and "the budget check" for one thing teaches three things. Rewording an unchanged sentence between edits costs the same way. Don't churn what didn't change.
• Skip idioms, colloquialisms, Latin abbreviations, and metaphors. A non-native reader, a translator, and an agent all parse plain constructions best.

• Apply the unslop skill to every doc this skill touches. That skill owns the slop-pattern catalog: AI vocabulary, filler, hedging, formatting tells.
• PR descriptions and commit messages are writing too. Every layer except Diátaxis applies to them. A PR body is a briefing that a reviewer can read in under a minute. Do not paste swarm logs, SHA lists, or metric tables. Link them.
• Product UI strings are not documentation. Use your product's copy guidelines for those.
• Indent code snippets with tabs. Write real paths and real symbols. Make every count or tree claim true at the commit that lands it, and include the command that regenerates it.

Configuration of the proto import ratchet budget script parameters is performed via budget.json. Note that it's important to remember that running with --write, which updates the committed budget to reflect the current count, should only be done when lowering it. If exceeded, CI fails.

budget.mjs

reads the committed budget from

budget.json

and counts the files that import protos. If the count exceeds the budget, CI fails. Run

budget.mjs --write

only to lower the budget.