Prose quality

An edit succeeds only if readers draw the same conclusions from the new text, with less effort.

Keep meaning fixed

• Keep each claim at its original strength and scope. Carry over hedges, conditions, sample sizes, units, hardware, baselines, and "experimental" or "may not" limits. Never turn "did not measure X" into "X was unchanged."
• Add no facts, numbers, or benefits the source lacks. Ask, or leave a marked gap.
• Preserve commands, paths, flags, symbols, quotations, and normative text (MUST, SHOULD) exactly.
• When the text describes code or a tool you can read, check its behavioral claims against it. Fix or flag mismatches and say what you checked.

Edit to the requested depth

• Review only: return findings ranked by reader impact, errors (wrong, ambiguous, out of order) before style. No rewrite.
• Editing: keep the author's voice, terms, structure, and the document's conventions (heading case, quote style, spelling). One name per concept.

Remove generated-sounding patterns

Cut puffery, signposting, filler, stacked hedges, summary closers, and decorative bold, emoji, or headers. Thin out em-dash chains, "not X but Y" contrasts, and forced triplets without substituting another tic. Keep a negation that states a real limit or hazard.

Before returning

Compare old and new for any claim that got stronger, weaker, or lost a qualifier. Name material ambiguities instead of writing around them.