clarity-editing — independently scanned and version-tracked by SaferSkills.
SaferSkills independently audited clarity-editing (Agent Skill) and scored it 100/100 (green). The audit ran 55 deterministic rules across Security, Supply Chain, Maintenance, Transparency, and Community; it found 0 high-severity and 0 lower-severity findings. The full rule-by-rule trace and per-finding evidence are below. Free, methodology-open.
Findings & checks · 0 flagged
Every scanned point with the score it earned and what moved between them.
First recorded scan — no prior version to compare against.
The primary manifest — the file an agent reads to learn what this artifact does.
Good writing is rewriting. First draft: get the thought on the page. Second draft: make the thought disappear behind the sentence. This skill is the second draft.
Run in order. Each pass targets one problem.
Cut every word that does not carry its weight. Typical savings: 20-40%.
| Cut | Keep |
|---|---|
| "in order to" | "to" |
| "due to the fact that" | "because" |
| "at this point in time" | "now" |
| "a number of" | "several" / "many" / a number |
| "is able to" | "can" |
| "make a decision" | "decide" |
| "in the event that" | "if" |
| "on a daily basis" | "daily" |
Sentence-level compression: if a sentence is over 25 words, look for a comma that could be a period.
Passive voice hides the actor and adds words.
| Passive | Active |
|---|---|
| "A decision was made by the team to defer the launch." | "The team deferred the launch." |
| "It has been observed that users are churning." | "Users are churning." |
| "The bug was caused by the cache layer." | "The cache layer caused the bug." |
Exceptions — use passive when:
Default: active. Every passive sentence should be deliberate.
Hedges and weasel words sap authority.
| Hedge | Strip to |
|---|---|
| "I think that it might be a good idea to" | "" (delete) or "We should" |
| "It seems like there may be some concern that" | "Users worry that" |
| "We should probably consider possibly doing" | "We should do" |
| "In our opinion, it's arguably" | "" (delete) |
| "Kind of" / "sort of" / "basically" | delete |
If you are genuinely uncertain, say so with a number ("60% confidence") or a named unknown, not a pile of hedges.
Full list and the "hedge audit" technique in references/hedge-and-jargon-removal.md.
A nominalization is a verb disguised as a noun. They make sentences abstract and slow.
| Nominalized | Verb form |
|---|---|
| "perform an evaluation of" | "evaluate" |
| "make a recommendation" | "recommend" |
| "conduct an investigation" | "investigate" |
| "have a discussion about" | "discuss" |
| "put in place" | "implement" |
Verbs are active. Nouns-that-used-to-be-verbs are not. Prefer the verb.
Before shipping:
Aim for reader effort appropriate to the audience.
| Audience | Target grade level | Tool |
|---|---|---|
| General/executive | 8-10 | Hemingway, readability APIs |
| Engineering internal | 10-12 | Same |
| Academic / legal | 12+ | Same, but know you're excluding readers |
Readability scores are rough signals, not verdicts. A sentence can be readable and wrong, or hard-to-read and correct. Use as a sanity check, not a judge.
Every field has legitimate terminology. The test: does the word carry information the reader cannot get another way?
A sentence with three pieces of jargon usually needs two of them removed.
structured-writing first.structured-writing).| File | Contents |
|---|---|
references/compression-patterns.md | 50+ wordy phrases with their compressed form; sentence-level compression techniques |
references/hedge-and-jargon-removal.md | Full hedge list, jargon audit, when to keep a hedge, domain-specific jargon guidance |
references/editing-examples.md | Before/after passages showing all four passes applied to real texts |
~30 seconds. Free. No account. Every finding cites a rule and a line of evidence.