What The Checker Flags

tells.py matches a fixed table of patterns. Everything it knows is in two lists at the top of the script, STOCK_WORDS and RULES, plus a few checks of structure. python skills/everwrite/scripts/tells.py --list prints the table. This page describes the script on master at commit 0673975 (2026-10-03).

Strong and weak

A strong hit is a pattern that almost never appears in text a person wrote with care. One strong hit makes the checker exit 1. A weak hit is listed for judgment and never changes the exit code: plenty of good human writing has a long sentence or a rather than.

What it reads and what it skips

The checker works on prose only. Before matching it blanks out:

• YAML frontmatter at the top of the file
• fenced code blocks and inline code
• HTML comments
• URLs and the targets of markdown links and link references
• anything between lines holding only <!-- tells: off --> and <!-- tells: on -->

Patterns match within a paragraph, ignoring case. A heading or a table row is a paragraph of its own, and each list item starts a new one. A code fence that never closes stops the check at that line, and the checker adds a weak input hit saying so.

Two checks are the exception and read every line, code included: hidden-char and odd-space. An invisible character inside a code block is as much a problem as one in prose.

The categories

Category	Severity	What it catches
dash	strong	An em or en dash, or -- between spaces. Off with --allow-dashes.
residue	strong	The chat wrapper: praise, offers, sign-offs, announcements of what follows, knowledge-cutoff lines, phrases that excuse missing sources.
markup	strong	Citation markers and tracking parameters that chat apps leave in copied text.
placeholder	strong	Unfilled template slots such as [insert name] or a date written 2026-xx-xx.
contrast	strong or weak	The not-X-but-Y family. The forms with not just, more than just, doesn't mean ... It means and negative listings are strong. A negative sentence followed by one starting It ... is weak, and so is rather than.
setup	strong	Staged openers, reveals with a colon, staged candor and arguing with a position nobody took.
inflation	strong	Inflated significance and sales language.
rider	strong	A comma followed by an -ing word such as highlighting or ensuring added for weight.
vocabulary	strong or weak	Words from the stock list. Two or more different listed words in one paragraph are strong; one alone is weak.
authority	weak	Unnamed experts, studies and observers.
copula	weak	serves as, stands as, boasts in place of is or has.
association	weak	associated with, connected with where a relationship could be named.
qualifier	weak	Stacked hedges such as could potentially.
adverb	weak	Intensifiers such as really, truly, fundamentally.
transition	weak	A sentence opening with Additionally,, Moreover,, Furthermore, or Notably,.
emoji	strong	An emoji in prose.
bold-label	strong	A list item that opens with a bold label followed by a colon or a dash.
repeated-heading	strong	A heading straight under a heading with the same words, or with --wiki a first heading repeating the page title.
repeated-text	strong	The same paragraph or list item twice in a row.
hidden-char	strong	Zero-width characters, the soft hyphen, bidirectional controls, tag characters and variation selectors.
odd-space	weak	No-break, narrow no-break and figure spaces.
title-case	weak	A heading with three or more significant words, all capitalised.
divider	weak	Two or more horizontal rules in a file.
curly-quote	weak	Curly quotation marks.
decoration	weak	Arrows in a heading or list item.
long-sentence	weak	A sentence over --max-words words, 30 by default.
repeated-opening	weak	Three sentences in a row starting with the same word.
input	weak	A problem with the file itself, such as an unclosed code fence.

Conditional sentences

Two of the strong contrast patterns skip a sentence that opens a condition. If the value is not set, it is zero is plain technical prose, so words such as if, when, unless and because before the match turn it off. The exemption came from the review before the first public release (the skill's CHANGELOG.md, C-20260925-6).

The stock words

The list holds 47 words and phrases, such as delve, tapestry, leverage, robust and seamless, with their common inflections. --list prints it in full. The skill tells the agent never to swap one listed word for another, since the swap is still on the list.

What it does not judge

The checker sees patterns a regular expression can find. It does not judge structure, rhythm, a list of three chosen for sound, or whether a fact was invented; the skill's last step is a reread for those. It gives no score and no guess at who wrote the text.