CATEGORIES.md

Category map: SKILL.md ↔ detector

This table is the anti-drift contract between the human-readable rules in ../SKILL.md and the executable engine in patterns.js. When you add a rule to the skill, decide here whether it's regex-detectable (give it a detector type) or LLM-only judgment (mark it so). When you add a detector type, point it back at the skill section it enforces.

The engine exposes 48 issue types (see TYPE_LABELS in patterns.js). The skill has more ### sections than that — the gap is not missing coverage, it's rules that are judgment calls a regex can't make. The three groups below account for every entry on both sides.

Three counts coexist on purpose and should not be forced to match: the README's pattern-category count (the human-facing prose catalog, derived from SKILL.md and guarded in CI), the engine's 48 types (which split the vocabulary tiers and add stylometric signals), and SKILL.md's ### sections (which also include writer-side tests with no detectable form). The categories.test.js enforces the engine ↔ this-file mapping, and checks every prose statement of the engine type total against TYPE_LABELS.

A. Direct mapping (skill rule → detector type)

Detector type	Label	SKILL.md section
tier1 / tier2 / tier3	AI vocabulary / Word cluster / Overused word	Words and phrases to replace
tier1-clarity	Wordiness	Words and phrases to replace (Tier 1B)
transition	AI transition	Transition phrases to remove or rewrite
template-phrase	Template phrase	Template phrases (avoid)
tier3-phrase / tier3-phrase-cluster	Boilerplate phrase / cluster	Template phrases (avoid)
chatbot	Chatbot artifact	Chatbot artifacts
sycophantic	Sycophantic tone	Sycophantic tone
acknowledgment-loop	Acknowledgment loop	Acknowledgment loops
filler	Filler phrase	Filler phrases
hollow-intensifier	Hollow intensifier	Filler phrases (intensifiers), except context-dependent actually (see §C)
generic-conclusion	Generic conclusion	Generic conclusions
social-cta-closer	Engagement-bait closer	Social endorsement closers
future-narrative	Generic future narrative	Generic future-narrative closers
lets-construction	"Let's" opener	"Let's" constructions
reasoning-artifact	Reasoning artifact	Reasoning chain artifacts
significance-inflation	Significance inflation	Significance inflation
novelty-inflation	Novelty inflation	Novelty inflation (the invented-concept-labels sub-rule is LLM-judgment only — open-ended coinages aren't regex-matchable)
real-actual-inflation	"Real/actual" inflation	"Real/actual" adjective inflation
vague-attribution	Vague attribution	Vague attributions
emotional-flatline	Emotional flatline	Emotional flatline / Superficial -ing analyses
lingering-attention	Lingering-attention claim	Lingering-attention claims (noun-anchored frames only — the bare "I keep coming back to X" stays LLM-judgment, since a following reason clause makes it legitimate and isn't regex-detectable)
cutoff-disclaimer	Cutoff disclaimer	Cutoff disclaimers
false-concession	False concession	False concession structure
rhetorical-question	Rhetorical question	Rhetorical question openers
formulaic-opener	Formulaic opener	Formulaic challenges
speculative-opener	Speculative scenario opener	Speculative scenario openers
confidence-calibration	Confidence stacking	Confidence calibration phrases
hedge-stack	Hedge-stacked prediction	Hedge-stacked predictions
parenthetical-hedge	Parenthetical hedge	Parenthetical hedging
hashtag-stuff	Hashtag stuffing	Hashtag stuffing
bullet-np-list	Bullet-NP list	Bullet lists of bare noun phrases
title-case-header	Title Case header	Title case headings
em-dash / formatting	Em dash overuse / Formatting	Formatting
uniformity	Rhythm uniformity	Rhythm and uniformity
low-ttr	Low vocabulary diversity	Vocabulary diversity (stylometric)
ai-placeholder	Unfilled placeholder	Unfilled placeholders
ai-citation-markup	Chatbot citation markup leak	Chatbot citation markup leaks
ai-utm-source	AI-tool URL parameter	AI-tool URL parameters
smart-punct-signature	Smart-punct signature	Formatting (curly quotation marks) — partial
unnecessary-hyphenation	Unnecessary hyphenation	Unnecessary hyphenation (curated open, closed, and position-dependent subclasses only)

Partial map: smart-punct-signature fires only when curly quotes co-occur with an em-dash, an Oxford comma, and clean typing (≥80 words) — never on curly punctuation alone. The SKILL.md Formatting rule treats curly quotes as a weak, corroborating signal in plain-text contexts and excludes apostrophes. The two agree in spirit (curly punctuation is never conclusive on its own) but differ in mechanism — so this is a partial map, not 1:1.

B. Detector-only (stylometric / fingerprint — no skill prose)

These extend the skill with signals that work as math over the whole document, not as a phrase a human editor would look up:

Detector type	Label	Why it's engine-only
punct-distribution	Punctuation distribution	Per-paragraph punctuation uniformity
fnword-trigram-entropy	Grammar repetition	Function-word trigram entropy
cross-para-burstiness	Cross-paragraph rhythm	Sentence-length variance across paragraphs
normalization-flag	Bypass-trick chars	Zero-width / homoglyph humanizer-bypass detection

C. Skill-only (LLM judgment — no detector type)

Rules that require reading for meaning, so they live in the skill prose and are applied by the model, not the regex engine. Listed so future contributors don't mistake their absence for a coverage gap:

• Synonym cycling
• Copula avoidance
• Promotional language
• Context-dependent actually as a hollow intensifier (delete it when it only adds emphasis; keep it when it carries a named correction or expectation gap). The same token performs both jobs, so matching it unconditionally would flag ordinary corrective prose.
• Sentence structure: "It's not X — it's Y" / split-sentence form / multi-negation countdown / tailing negation
• Structural issues / Excessive structure / Inline-header lists / Numbered list inflation
• Moral-adjective category errors (including ontological slop on assumptions, gratuitous universal quantifiers)
• Invented contrast-pair mirroring
• Hyphenated modifier stacking
• Unnecessary hyphenation outside the detector's curated subclasses
• False ranges
• Notability name-dropping
• Vague third-party validation
• Self-labeling significance
• Wall-of-text replies (missing line breaks) (tried as a detector — "reply-length, >=4 sentences, zero newlines" — and reverted; it fires on any ordinary short paragraph, not just conversational-reply register, so it stayed judgment-only. See the NOTE in patterns.js near the bullet-NP-list block)
• Recap-flattery opener
• Narrated candor (tried as a detector and reverted: the phrasings are shared with idiomatic conflict-of-interest disclosure ("in the interest of full disclosure, I own shares in...") and with the ordinary English comparative ("I'd rather die than let you drive"), so any regex tight enough to avoid those stopped matching the tell. Judging it needs reading whether the clause carries information or only announces that information is coming)
• Immaculate typography in casual registers (folded into the Formatting section — same weak-signal tier as curly quotes, not a standalone category)
• Subjectless fragments and agentless passives (docs and changelog registers are carve-outs — the fragment is the correct form there)
• Diff-anchored writing (changelogs, release notes, and migration guides are carve-outs)
• Manufactured punchlines / staccato drama
• Aphorism formulas (a regex for "X is the Y of Z" would flag ordinary genitive copulas — "Paris is the capital of France")
• When to rewrite from scratch vs. patch
• Severity tiers (P0 / P1 / P2)
• Self-reference escape hatch
• Output format

Partial: the skill's Context profiles / Tolerance matrix / Auto-detection cues are partly realized by the engine's options.contextMode (general / technical), which suppresses context-inappropriate flags. Full profile-based tolerance remains an LLM-side judgment.