ISO 24495 Text Audit

Audit only the path the user selects. Report mechanical findings so the user can decide whether the text suits its readers and purpose.

Language and input scope

The audit is written for English and supports English only. The skills and output style are instructions a model interprets, so they are not limited to English in the same way.

Its word rules match English words and phrases: legalese, doublet, wordy-phrase, filler-opening, complex-word, double-negative, and the phrases link-text looks for. The filler-opening rule checks only the opening prose. The link-text rule also flags empty labels and labels that are bare web addresses.

Five word rules read headings as well as prose: legalese, doublet, wordy-phrase, complex-word, and double-negative. The rules about sentences and paragraphs read prose only, because a heading is not a sentence.

The sentence-length and sentence-average rules count words separated by whitespace, including spaces and line breaks, and use English benchmarks. The paragraph-length rule counts sentences, with a limit of five.

The prose-enumeration rule flags three or more distinct ranks in a prose block, including rank one. It recognises English ordinal words and numbered markers from one to six.

The audit reads Markdown as written and does not interpret raw HTML. It sets HTML tags aside and reads the text between them, even where GitHub would hide or change that text.

Workflow

1. Read the path from $ARGUMENTS. Ask for a path when none was supplied.
2. Resolve the audit script relative to this SKILL.md file.
3. State the selected file or directory before running the script.
4. Treat an explicitly supplied directory as approval to read that directory.
5. Ask before expanding the audit beyond the supplied path.
6. Run the script with Bun:

bun <skill-directory>/scripts/audit-text-cli.ts <file-or-directory> --project-dir <project-directory>

Add --no-front-matter for text that cannot carry metadata, such as a pull request description. A leading --- block is then read as text, not set aside as front matter.

7. Report every finding with its file, line, rule, and explanation.
8. Report skipped or unreadable entries. Never treat an incomplete audit as clean.
9. Explain that findings are mechanical proxies, not an ISO judgement.
10. Leave the final decision and any rewriting request to the user.

Boundaries

• Read .md, .markdown, and .txt files only.
• Do not follow a selected or nested symbolic link or directory junction. Report each one as skipped.
• Do not alter the selected text unless the user separately requests changes.
• Do not create a report file unless the user requests one and names its location.
• Do not describe zero findings as proof that text is valid, compliant, or suitable.
• Use the relevant sector skill when interpreting findings in legal, technical, scientific, or designed documents.