How I got a tiny tool to catch my AI's writing tics — automatically

The AI I write with kept slipping the same hollow phrases into my drafts, over and over, and I kept either catching them by hand or missing them. So this week I stopped relying on myself and built a small checker that flags them for me every time I save. Here’s how it works, and how to build your own, starting with no code at all.

💡 The principle: list the phrases you’re tired of seeing, then make your computer point them out automatically — so good writing doesn’t depend on you remembering to be careful.

The tics I kept missing

A few examples of what the AI reached for, so you know the shape of the problem:

• The fake either/or: “This isn’t about speed — it’s about trust.” (Sounds profound; says little.)

• The grand closing line that announces its own importance: “And that’s the part worth sitting with.”

• Three dashes crammed into one sentence to fake a rhythm.

• Breathless adjectives — powerful, staggering, game-changing — doing the work the facts should.

Yours will be different. The point is that everyone who writes with AI has a handful, and they repeat.

What “slop” and a “linter” actually are

AI slop is the bland, samey filler that language models reach for — the examples above are the usual suspects. Once you’ve seen the tics, you can’t unsee them.

A linter is just a checker: a small program that scans text for specific things and warns you when it finds them. Programmers run them on code; the same idea works perfectly on writing. A linter doesn’t rewrite anything — it points and says “this, here,” and leaves the fixing to you.

Why a note-to-self never works

For months I’d been adding notes — “stop using that phrase” — and they did nothing, because a note only helps if you remember it at the exact moment you’re about to slip. What actually worked was moving the discipline out of my head and into a check that runs on its own. That’s the real lesson, and it reaches well beyond writing: when you keep making the same mistake despite knowing better, build the guardrail once and stop relying on willpower to remember.

Build your own, from no-code up

Start at whatever level you’re comfortable with. Each step is more automatic than the last.

1. Make your list. Read back a month of your own writing and note the three or four phrases or habits you repeat. These are yours — they matter more than anyone else’s. (Let the AI help — first prompt below.)

2. The no-code version. Before you publish, use Find (Cmd/Ctrl-F) and search for each phrase in turn. Crude, but it works today with nothing installed.

3. The tiny-script version. A dozen lines can search for all your phrases at once and flag any it finds. You don’t have to write it — have the AI write it (second prompt below), then run it on your draft.

4. Make it run on its own. This is the real upgrade, and it’s the bit most people skip. Ask your AI assistant to wire the check into the moment you’ll actually hit it — a save hook in your editor, or a step before you publish — and to walk you through setting it up (third prompt below). Now you can’t forget to run it.

Three prompts that do the work for you

Find your own tics:

Here are ten things I've written recently: [paste them]. Act as a tough editor.
List the 6 phrases, sentence-shapes, or habits I over-rely on. For each, quote
one real example from my text and say in a few words why it weakens the writing.
Be specific, and don't flatter me.

Get the checker built (no coding knowledge needed):

Write me a short script in [Python, or a shell script] that takes a text file
and searches it for these exact phrases and patterns: [paste your list]. It
should print every match with the line it found on, and exit with an error if
it finds any, so I can run it before publishing. Add a comment explaining how
to run it step by step.

Make it fire automatically:

I want this script to run by itself so I never forget it. I write in [your
editor / tool, e.g. VS Code, Obsidian]. Walk me through the simplest way to run
it automatically — every time I save, or as a one-click step before I publish —
in plain steps a non-programmer can follow.

The reviewer that made things worse

I also threw out an AI “reviewer” I’d been using for this same job. It had been quietly adding slop of its own while it reviewed — because anything that writes has a style and an opinion. A plain checker that only matches your exact list can’t do that. For catching repeat mistakes, the simple, opinion-free tool is the safer one.