# Avoid Ai Voice

> Strip the tells of generic AI writing — the slop cadence, hollow hedging, and reflexive symmetry that mark text as machine-generated. Use when reviewing or drafting any prose that should not read as obviously AI-written. Shareable: a generic counterpart to a personal voice guide.

- **Type:** Skill
- **Install:** `agentstack add skill-rhdeck-operating-model-avoid-ai-voice`
- **Verified:** Yes — security-reviewed for prompt injection and unsafe behavior
- **Seller:** [rhdeck](https://agentstack.voostack.com/s/rhdeck)
- **Installs:** 0
- **Category:** [Agent Skills](https://agentstack.voostack.com/c/agent-skills)
- **Latest version:** 0.1.0
- **License:** MIT
- **Upstream author:** [rhdeck](https://github.com/rhdeck)
- **Source:** https://github.com/rhdeck/operating-model/tree/main/skills/avoid-ai-voice

## Install

```sh
agentstack add skill-rhdeck-operating-model-avoid-ai-voice
```

Requires the [AgentStack CLI](https://agentstack.voostack.com/docs/cli). Works with Claude Code, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible agent.

## About

# Avoid AI Voice

> DRAFT — pending review. A first pass; refine in-app. This is the *generic*, shareable counterpart to [[ray-voice]] (which is private). Where `ray-voice` defines a positive personal voice, this one is about removing the machine tells from any writing.

Most "AI voice" isn't wrong — it's hollow. It hedges where it should commit, balances where it should choose, and restates where it should advance. The fix is subtraction: cut the tells, and what's left reads human.

## Core principle

Every sentence should advance the argument or be cut. AI prose accumulates sentences that *sound* like progress — summaries, framings, gentle qualifications — while saying nothing new. Delete them.

## The tells, and the fix

- **Reflexive hedging.** "It's worth noting," "in some sense," "this could potentially." → Assert or cut. State uncertainty specifically when it's real; don't fog every clause.
- **False symmetry.** Presenting two options as balanced when one is clearly better, for the appearance of even-handedness. → Recommend, then give the honest tradeoff.
- **Restating the prompt.** Opening by paraphrasing the question. → Start with the answer.
- **Hollow enthusiasm.** "Great question!", "Absolutely!", "I'd be happy to." → Just do the thing.
- **Summary that adds nothing.** A closing paragraph that re-lists what was already said. → End on the last real point, or a next action.
- **Listy throat-clearing.** Three bullets that each restate the heading. → One sentence, or real content.
- **Uniform cadence.** Every sentence the same medium length, every paragraph the same shape. → Vary it. Short. Then a longer one that earns its length.
- **Over-qualification.** Stacking caveats until the claim disappears. → Make the claim; footnote the one caveat that matters.

## Relationship to `unslop`

This guide overlaps the `unslop` skill, which is the operational pass for removing slop from a specific draft. Use **`unslop`** when you have text in front of you and want it cleaned; use **`avoid-ai-voice`** as the standing reference for *what* the tells are and why they read as machine-written. They're a pair, not duplicates — keep the operational mechanics in `unslop` and the principle/reference here.

## The test

Read it aloud. If it sounds like a press release, a help-desk macro, or a model trying to be agreeable, it's slop. If it sounds like a person who has decided something and is telling you, it's not.

## Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

- **Author:** [rhdeck](https://github.com/rhdeck)
- **Source:** [rhdeck/operating-model](https://github.com/rhdeck/operating-model)
- **License:** MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.

## Pricing

- **Free** — Free

## Security capabilities

Automated source analysis of v0.1.0 — what this tool can access:

- **Network access:** no
- **Filesystem access:** no
- **Shell / process execution:** no
- **Environment & secrets:** no
- **Dynamic code execution:** no

*"Yes" means the capability is present in the source — more access means more to trust, not that it is unsafe.*


## Versions

- **0.1.0** — security scan: passed — Imported from the upstream source.

## Links

- Listing page: https://agentstack.voostack.com/l/skill-rhdeck-operating-model-avoid-ai-voice
- Seller: https://agentstack.voostack.com/s/rhdeck
- Browse the marketplace: https://agentstack.voostack.com/browse

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