Show HN: SHOOK - A Hook for ASD Simplified English

Viktorinkov released SHOOK, a plugin that enforces ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English across every Claude Code reply, with hooks that load rules at session start, remind on each prompt, and lint-gate failed replies for rewrite. The plugin, which requires the AminBlg/SimpleEnglish plugin, adds a /ste command and a status line badge showing [STE] or [STE:STRICT x.x], and also supports Codex CLI and Antigravity CLI.

SHOOK, a Simple English hook. Claude picks the replies that get the Simple English skill. Most replies never qualify.This plugin applies it to every reply. Three Claude Code hooks that make AminBlg/SimpleEnglish https://github.com/AminBlg/SimpleEnglish always on: the rules at session start, a reminder on every prompt, and a lint gate that sends a failed reply back for a rewrite. The status line shows the mode the whole time: STE or STE:STRICT x.x . This plugin is a companion to AminBlg/SimpleEnglish , the simple-english plugin. That plugin brings ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English to Claude Code and other agents. It is a prerequisite. The full rule set and the linter ste lint.py come from it at run time. This plugin adds the hooks, the /ste command, and the status line badge.Quick start Claude Code Installs both Simple English https://github.com/AminBlg/SimpleEnglish and its Shook integration plugin: claude plugin marketplace add AminBlg/SimpleEnglish && claude plugin install simple-english@simple-english && claude plugin marketplace add viktorinkov/shook && claude plugin install simple-english-hook@simple-english-hook Then start a new session and type /ste strict . For the status line badge: - Ask Claude: Install the STE status line badge. - Or install manually: Run the script from the plugin cache. bash "$ ls -d ~/.claude/plugins/cache/simple-english-hook/simple-english-hook/ / | tail -1 statusline-install.sh" The status line then shows STE or STE:STRICT x.x the whole time. Claude Code 1. Prerequisite Install the simple-english plugin https://github.com/AminBlg/SimpleEnglish -install . The rules and the linter come from it. claude plugin marketplace add AminBlg/SimpleEnglish claude plugin install simple-english@simple-english 2. Install SHOOK claude plugin marketplace add viktorinkov/shook claude plugin install simple-english-hook@simple-english-hook 3. Enable Start a new session and type the mode. /ste strict Toggle: /ste on , /ste strict , /ste off , or /ste status . Status line badge optional : - Ask Claude: Install the STE status line badge. - Or install manually: Run the script from the plugin cache. bash "$ ls -d ~/.claude/plugins/cache/simple-english-hook/simple-english-hook/ / | tail -1 statusline-install.sh" The script adds one line to your status line script. If you have no status line script, it creates one. The badge shows STE in on mode and STE:STRICT x.x in strict mode. Codex CLI 1. Prerequisite Codex does not install the simple-english plugin https://github.com/AminBlg/SimpleEnglish -install . Clone it and point STE PLUGIN DIR at the clone. Put the export line in your shell profile. git clone https://github.com/AminBlg/SimpleEnglish ~/SimpleEnglish export STE PLUGIN DIR=~/SimpleEnglish 2. Install SHOOK codex plugin marketplace add viktorinkov/shook codex plugin add simple-english-hook@simple-english-hook 3. Enable Start Codex in a project. At the first start, Codex asks you to review the hooks. Choose Review hooks and trust the simple-english-hook entry in each event. The /hooks panel shows the same list at any time. Then type the mode. The $ opens the Codex skill picker. $ste strict Toggle: $ste on , $ste strict , $ste off , or $ste status . - Works: on and strict . The rules load at session start, each prompt gets the reminder, and the Stop hook sends a failed reply back once. - Does not work: the status line badge. Codex has no status line. The mode shows as a system message at session start and after each toggle. See Codex CLI /viktorinkov/shook/blob/main/docs/other-harnesses.md codex-cli in the harness docs. Antigravity CLI 1. Prerequisite Antigravity does not install the simple-english plugin https://github.com/AminBlg/SimpleEnglish -install . Clone it and point STE PLUGIN DIR at the clone. Put the export line in your shell profile. git clone https://github.com/AminBlg/SimpleEnglish ~/SimpleEnglish export STE PLUGIN DIR=~/SimpleEnglish 2. Install SHOOK The command also takes the path of a local clone. agy plugin install https://github.com/viktorinkov/shook 3. Enable Start a new agy session and type the mode. /ste strict Toggle: /ste on , /ste strict , /ste off , or /ste status . - Works: on and strict . The rules load at session start, each model call gets the reminder, and the Stop hook lints the reply from the transcript. - Does not work: the badge. In print mode agy -p outside a project, the hooks do not read the per-repo file. Use the global flag or STE MODE . See Antigravity CLI /viktorinkov/shook/blob/main/docs/other-harnesses.md antigravity-cli in the harness docs. Copilot CLI 1. Prerequisite Copilot does not install the simple-english plugin https://github.com/AminBlg/SimpleEnglish -install . Clone it and point STE PLUGIN DIR at the clone. Put the export line in your shell profile. git clone https://github.com/AminBlg/SimpleEnglish ~/SimpleEnglish export STE PLUGIN DIR=~/SimpleEnglish 2. Install SHOOK copilot plugin marketplace add viktorinkov/shook copilot plugin install simple-english-hook@simple-english-hook 3. Enable Start a new Copilot session and type the mode. The new mode applies at the next session start. /simple-english-hook:ste on Toggle: /simple-english-hook:ste on or /simple-english-hook:ste off . To set the mode for one session, start Copilot with STE MODE=on copilot . - Works: on . The rules load at session start. - Does not work: the reminder on each prompt, strict , and the badge. Copilot sends no reply text to its stop hook, so the hooks treat strict as on . See GitHub Copilot CLI /viktorinkov/shook/blob/main/docs/other-harnesses.md github-copilot-cli in the harness docs. Cursor 1. Prerequisite Cursor does not install the simple-english plugin https://github.com/AminBlg/SimpleEnglish -install . Clone it and point STE PLUGIN DIR at the clone. Put the export line in your shell profile. git clone https://github.com/AminBlg/SimpleEnglish ~/SimpleEnglish export STE PLUGIN DIR=~/SimpleEnglish 2. Install SHOOK Clone this repo. The hooks run from the clone, so keep it. git clone https://github.com/viktorinkov/shook ~/shook 3. Enable Run the install script in your project with a mode. It writes the rule file and the hooks into the project. cd <your-project bash ~/shook/cursor-install.sh strict Toggle: /ste on , /ste strict , /ste off , or /ste status in the Agent chat. Or run bash ~/shook/cursor-install.sh <mode from the shell. - Works: on and strict . The rule file applies the rules to every request, and the stop hook sends a failed reply back once. - Does not work: the badge, a reminder injected on each prompt, an ste skill, and cloud agents. The always-on rule file replaces the reminder. Details: Cursor /viktorinkov/shook/blob/main/docs/other-harnesses.md cursor in the harness docs. | Command | What it does | |---|---| /ste on | Loads the rules at session start and adds the reminder on every prompt. | /ste strict | Same as on , plus the lint gate on every reply. | /ste off | Stops the hooks. | /ste status | Shows the current mode and its source. | /ste project <mode | Sets on , strict , or off for the current repo only. /ste project clear removes it. | /ste config | Shows every lint gate setting, its value, and its source. | /ste set <key <value | Writes a lint gate setting. See | /ste uninstall The commands above are the Claude Code spelling. Each block in Installation -installation gives the spelling for its harness. The hooks enforce the mode, so the badge is how you see that the mode is on and how strict it is. | Badge | Meaning | |---|---| STE | Mode on . | STE:STRICT x.x | Mode strict . x.x is the lint score of the last reply: rule violations per 100 words. Lower is better. | | nothing | Mode off . | - Ask Claude: Install the STE status line badge. - Or install manually: Run statusline-install.sh from this plugin's folder. The hooks run in every repo. The mode decides what they do. The mode has three scopes. | Scope | How to set it | Where it lives | |---|---|---| | Global | /ste on , /ste strict , /ste off | ~/.claude/.simple-english-active | | One repo | /ste project on , /ste project strict , /ste project off , /ste project clear | <repo /.claude/ste-mode | | Fixed | STE MODE=strict in the environment, or "env": {"STE MODE": "strict"} in <repo /.claude/settings.json | environment | Order of precedence: environment, then the repo file, then the global flag, then off. Each harness keeps its own global flag. The repo file and STE MODE apply to all harnesses. To use it in a team repo, type /ste project strict and commit .claude/ste-mode . Each team member installs both plugins once. This plugin only changes how often the rules apply, so the comparison that matters is the simple-english skill alone against the hook. The benchmark runs on several Claude models in Claude Code and on GPT models in Codex CLI. The benchmark sends the same 50 writing prompts docs, code reviews, error messages, commit messages, incident reports, runbooks through each arm, one run per prompt. The simple-english plugin's own linter, ste lint.py , counts the rule violations in every reply. Method, full tables, and all raw replies: evals/results/RESULTS.md /viktorinkov/shook/blob/main/evals/results/RESULTS.md . v/100w is the linter's count of rule violations per 100 words, so lower is better. | Model | n prompts | skill alone v/100w | hook on v/100w | hook strict v/100w | reduction strict vs skill | |---|---|---|---|---|---| claude-fable-5 claude | 50 | 2.41 | 0.51 | 0.22 | 91% | claude-opus-5 claude | 50 | 2.68 | 0.41 | 0.45 | 83% | claude-sonnet-5 claude | 50 | 2.38 | 0.47 | 0.32 | 87% | claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 claude | 50 | 2.74 | 0.97 | 0.71 | 74% | gpt-5.6-sol codex | 50 | 0.94 | 0.59 | 0.34 | 64% | gpt-5.4-mini codex | 50 | 1.66 | 0.51 | 0.63 | 62% | The per-model table for Claude Fable 5 shows the three-row shape: | Arm | Skill fired | Violations / 100 words | Replies with 0 violations | Output tokens per reply | |---|---|---|---|---| | skill | 27/50 | 2.41 | 10% | 1224 | | hook-on | 19/50 | 0.51 | 38% | 1020 | | hook-strict | 20/50 | 0.22 | 60% | 1361 | How to read it: Claude alone decides whether the skill fires. On Fable 5, it fired in 27 of 50 replies. The hook applies the rules on every reply. Strict mode adds the gate, blocked 6 of 50 replies on Fable 5, and cut the violations by 91%. Read the tables with care. The linter is a regex pass. It undercounts and it cannot judge meaning. The numbers compare arms against each other. They are not a compliance score. No tool can certify ASD-STE100 compliance. Reproduce: python3 evals/bench.py for Claude Code, and python3 evals/codex bench.py for Codex. | Hook | Event | Action | |---|---|---| SessionStart | New session, resume, clear, compact | Loads the full rule set from the simple-english plugin as context. | UserPromptSubmit | Every prompt | Adds a 74-word STE reminder. Handles /ste commands. | Stop | End of every reply, strict mode only | Runs the simple-english linter ste lint.py on the reply. If the reply fails, Claude must rewrite it once. | | Status line optional | Always | Shows STE in on mode, or STE:STRICT x.x with the last lint score in strict mode. Shows nothing in off mode. | In strict mode, a failed reply goes back to Claude with a message like this one from the benchmark: STE LINT FAILED 8 violations in 234 words, 3.42 per 100 words; longest sentence 35 words . Found: sentence over limit=2, contraction=4, trailing condition=2. Rewrite your whole last reply ... Claude rewrites the reply once per turn. The reminder on every prompt is the part that an output style cannot do. A system prompt is read once. A reminder sits next to the newest message, every turn. When all three conditions are true, the gate blocks a reply: - The reply has at least min-words words. - The reply has at least min-total violations. - The density is above max-per-100w violations per 100 words. A tight gate makes Claude rewrite short, correct replies. A loose gate lets slop through. The gate runs at most one rewrite per turn. | Key | What it sets | Default | Env variable | |---|---|---|---| min-words | Shortest reply the gate checks, in words. | 40 | STE MIN WORDS | min-total | Fewest violations that can block a reply. | 2 | STE MIN TOTAL | max-per-100w | Highest violation density the gate allows, per 100 words. | 1.0 | STE MAX PER 100W | lint-type | Rule set the linter uses: descriptive or procedural . | descriptive | STE LINT TYPE | Use the env variables for CI and scripts. | Command | What it does | |---|---| /ste config | Shows every setting, its value, and its source env, project, global, default . | /ste set <key <value | Writes the global setting. | /ste project set <key <value | Writes the setting for the current repo. | /ste unset <key , /ste project unset <key | Removes one setting. | The gate reads each key from the first place that has it: - Env variable - Repo file: <repo /.claude/ste-config.json . Safe to commit. - Global file: ~/.claude/simple-english-hook.json - Default - Code blocks, identifiers, file paths, CLI commands, and quoted error messages. The rules and the linter skip them. - Code that Claude writes. The rules apply to prose only. - Marketing copy or brand voice that you ask for. - Any repo with /ste project off . Any session with /ste off . STE is flat by design. Use it for docs, reviews, runbooks, error messages, and explanations. Turn it off for a blog post. Why not just call the skill? You can. A call applies the rules to that one reply. The next reply forgets them. Left to itself, the skill fired in 27 of 50 replies on Fable 5. This plugin runs every turn and needs no call. Why not the simple-english output style? The output style is a good one-shot. It has no reminder per turn and no gate. claude plugin marketplace update simple-english-hook claude plugin update simple-english-hook@simple-english-hook - Type /ste uninstall . It removes the status line badge, the state files, and the mode and config files in the current repo. - Run claude plugin uninstall simple-english-hook@simple-english-hook . If other repos have a .claude/ste-mode or .claude/ste-config.json file, delete those by hand. To remove the simple-english plugin https://github.com/AminBlg/SimpleEnglish too, follow the steps in its README. For Codex, Antigravity, Copilot, and Cursor, see the uninstall steps in docs/other-harnesses.md /viktorinkov/shook/blob/main/docs/other-harnesses.md . MIT. Not affiliated with ASD or STEMG. ASD-STE100 is a registered trademark of ASD.