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tropes.fyi: The Anti-Slop Cheat Sheet Your System Prompt Needs

Ossama Chaib created tropes.fyi, a markdown file that lists recurring AI writing patterns such as 'delve' overuse and em dash abuse. Developers can paste the file into system prompts to reduce these clichés in LLM outputs. The project is maintained via a GitHub Gist and updated with new tropes as they are identified.

read1 min views1 publishedJul 10, 2026

tropes.fyi is a single markdown file that names and shames every recurring AI writing pattern. You paste it into your system prompt and the slop dries up. That's it. Thirty seconds of setup.

You already know the offenders. "Delve" showing up fourteen times in one blog post. Compulsive em dash abuse. That weird thing where every paragraph opens with "It's not X, it's Y" like a TED talk gone wrong. Bolded bullet leads that make everything read like a LinkedIn carousel. Made-up problem-nouns like "supervision paradox" or "acceleration trap" that sound academic but mean absolutely nothing.

I chucked the tropes.md file into my CLAUDE.md and the difference was proper noticeable. Not perfect, models still have their habits, but the worst offenders just stopped appearing. No more "tapestry of innovation" prose. No more "in today's rapidly evolving landscape." Gone overnight.

Ossama Chaib built it and keeps it maintained. New tropes get added as people spot them in the wild. There's a GitHub Gist version too if you prefer that format. Either way, absolute doddle to set up. If you write anything with an LLM and you haven't dropped this into your prompt yet, I reckon you're making life harder than it needs to be.

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