A linter for English prose.

Code gets review. Prose gets a shrug.

nabokov reads your draft and prints each problem as a warning. Every check has a code, so you can select or silence it. Run it on a file, a folder, or piped text.

The Hemingway Editor, a writing app, inspired the rule set. nabokov runs the checks with spaCy, a library that understands English grammar. It knows a verb from a noun, so fewer false alarms.

what it flags

• NB201 hard sentence Too long and tangled to follow.
• NB301 adverb Words ending in -ly that prop up weak verbs.
• NB302 passive voice The actor hides behind the verb.
• NB303 qualifier Soft words that weaken the point.
• NB401 wordy phrase Ten words where three would do.
• NB5xx AI tells Signs of machine-written text, off by default.

--target

One bar does not fit every text. --target names your reader. Plain language wants accessible. Expert docs want technical. Prose with a voice gets essay. The default is normal.

Each target sets the style budgets too. An essay earns more adverbs than a manual. Under budget, findings stay advisory; over it, they turn into warnings.

$ nabokov --target essay draft.md

--ai

AI text has an accent. The --ai flag hunts for it. Buzzwords, chatbot filler, the "not this, but that" reflex. Plus sentences that all sound the same.

The list of signs comes from Wikipedia's guide to spotting AI writing.

try it

$ uvx nabokov draft.md

One command, no setup: uvx fetches nabokov and the language model on first run.

$ uv tool install nabokov 
$ nabokov download-model
$ nabokov draft.md

nabokov-editor, the skill

Static rules see form, not meaning. The repo ships nabokov-editor, a skill that teaches AI agents to edit prose. It replaces the scattered humanizer, unslop, and anti-slop prompts. Your agent runs the linter, fixes the findings, then reads for what rules miss:

• empty prose Grammatical sentences that say nothing.
• no lived detail Confident prose without one concrete fact.
• false ranges From X to Y on no real scale.
• synonym cycling The hero, the protagonist, the main character.
• gap-filling Stock phrases where the source says nothing.
• hollow closers The future looks bright.

Fixes keep the meaning. Big edits wait for your approval.

# Claude Code 
/plugin marketplace add viewflow/nabokov
/plugin install nabokov@viewflow

# Cursor, Codex, Gemini CLI, and other agents 
$ npx skills add viewflow/nabokov

Then ask your agent to de-slop a file.