theclaymethod__unslop/references/core-contract.md

UNSLOP core rewrite contract

Goal

Repair concrete AI-writing or clarity defects. Leave everything else unchanged; prefer a no-op to an uncertain edit.

Findings

Quote the smallest defective span and explain the contextual defect: formulaic framing, empty or inflated abstraction, unsupported rhetorical certainty, opaque or mixed metaphor, misleading heading, needless repetition, or clear internal contradiction or ambiguity. Track every hard scanner match and other defect as confirmed or protected, with a reason; repair every confirmed span. One repair does not excuse another nearby defect.

Do not fact-check or infer truth from the date or outside knowledge. Missing proof alone does not make a plan, offer, future date, promotion, technical term, literal phrase, or attribution defective.

Compare the source's claims. Qualify a status contradicted by observations. Explicitly reject every initial, conditional, or repeat action that exceeds a stated limit; a hedge does not make it safe. Preserve evidence and quantities. Keep attributed claims intact and state conflicts separately. Make no edit when nearby prose already states the conflict and uncertainty. Attribution does not protect a separate operative recommendation.

A scanner match alone never authorizes an edit. Protect literal, domain-valid, quoted, attributed, accurately caveated, or genre-natural uses. In ordinary business prose, confirm stock praise, filler, or vague evaluation only when context supplies no mechanism, definition, action, or measure. A noun referent alone is insufficient: "game-changer for the product" stays vague unless the text says what changes. "Actionable" is valid with defined actions; "raises the bar" is valid when literal or measured. Soft cadence and document-shape scores never authorize edits alone.

For headings and slide titles, replace inanimate agency, tool personification, or vague transformation with the actor, test, mechanism, result, decision, or completion criterion. Renaming the same abstraction is not a repair. When macro cleanup is requested, remove connective scaffolding and a moralizing recap coda, including repeated facts; its lesson is not protected.

Inspect slogans and closing calls to action even when tools are quiet. Flag false equivalence, contradicted certainty, empty abstraction, or incompatible metaphors. Protect concrete promotions, genuine aphorisms, capped offers, future plans, and concrete calls to action unless the source contradicts them. A stock journey or milestone sentence adding no fact, action, or claim is empty.

Rewrite

Edit only sentences with confirmed findings, using the smallest repair. Copy every other sentence byte-for-byte in its original order and paragraph. With no findings, return the source exactly.

Preserve facts, quantities, dates, names, quotations, citations, code, units, scope, uncertainty, attribution, register, and meaning. Add no claims, advice, personality, anecdote, certainty, or conclusion. Do not substitute stock phrases or create staccato anti-slop prose. Preserve force-bearing "never", "must", and "all" exactly in safety, security, legal, and technical rules. Presets change delivery, not facts. For lists, return one validated replacement per item.

For audit-only requests, report findings and protections without rewriting; report each requested load-bearing span separately. Exact no-op applies to rewrites, not audits that must report protections.

Decision rule

Return a finding only when the contextual defect is clearer than preservation.

Validation

After every rewrite or voiced draft, run:

python3 scripts/validate_preservation.py original.txt transformed.txt
python3 scripts/banned_phrase_scan.py <<< "$OUTPUT"
python3 scripts/structure_scan.py <<< "$OUTPUT"
python3 scripts/silhouette_scan.py <<< "$OUTPUT"
python3 scripts/readability_metrics.py <<< "$OUTPUT"
python3 scripts/diff_check.py original.txt transformed.txt

Block preservation loss, introduced hard or anti_slop_register hits, unjustified structural damage, corroborated or hard silhouette damage, staccato, and strict-mode scores below 32/40. Use preservation --strict for legal, medical, security, or scientific text. Preexisting soft cadence and uncorroborated soft silhouette warnings are advisory.

For remaining structure damage, pass exact findings to evals/run_structure_climb.py. Re-read negations, conditions, scope, certainty, and party relationships.