talk-normal#

A curated system prompt that stops your LLM from writing like a LinkedIn post. Measured: 71% character reduction on GPT-4o-mini, 56% on GPT-5.4, across 10 prompts in English and Chinese, without losing information.

What this skill does#

When invoked, this skill installs the talk-normal rules into your workspace's AGENTS.md file as an always-on behavior modifier. After install, every reply your OpenClaw agent produces follows the rules in prompt.md. The rules live between # --- talk-normal BEGIN --- and # --- talk-normal END --- markers so they do not conflict with your existing rules in AGENTS.md.

This is not a workflow skill you invoke per turn. It is a one-time installer that makes your agent permanently less verbose until you uninstall.

How to run#

To install or update talk-normal in the current workspace:

bash

bash install.sh

The script is idempotent: running it again replaces the existing talk-normal block in place with the latest rules. Nothing else in your AGENTS.md is touched.

To remove:

bash

bash install.sh --uninstall

What gets installed#

The contents of prompt.md get injected into your AGENTS.md. The rules target the specific slop patterns that make LLM output sound corporate and padded, grouped into a few categories:

• Filler and hedging — banned opening phrases ("Great question", "I'd be happy to", "让我们一起来看看"), no throat-clearing, no restating the question
• Structural discipline — lead with the answer, match depth to complexity, use bullets only when content is genuinely parallel, cap explanations for conceptual questions
• Closing patterns — no "In summary" / "Hope this helps" / "综上所述", no hypothetical follow-up offers, no conditional next-step menus ("If you want I can also...")
• Rhetorical tics — no "不是X，而是Y" / reject-then-correct framing in any variant, no plain-language restatements ("翻成人话", "in other words")
• Shape of comparisons — give a recommendation with brief reasoning, cap pros/cons lists, no balanced-essay posture

The exact rule list lives in prompt.md and evolves as new slop patterns get caught in the wild. Every commit to that file is a named slop pattern killed.

Updating to the latest rules#

bash

clawhub update talk-normal
bash install.sh

The first command pulls the latest skill bundle from ClawHub. The second command re-runs the idempotent installer, replacing the old rule block in AGENTS.md with the new one.

Compatibility#

Works on any LLM that honors system prompts or custom instructions: GPT-5.4, GPT-4o-mini, Claude 4.6, Gemini 2.5, Grok 3, Qwen 3, DeepSeek V3, and others. OpenClaw integration is via AGENTS.md injection, which the agent reads on every turn.

Measured effect#

Full benchmark data for 10 prompts across GPT-4o-mini and GPT-5.4 is in TEST_RESULTS.md in the upstream repository. Average reduction: 71% on GPT-4o-mini, 56% on GPT-5.4, while preserving the information content of the original response.

Upstream and issues#

• Source: https://github.com/hexiecs/talk-normal
• Issues and rule suggestions: https://github.com/hexiecs/talk-normal/issues
• Contributing: see CONTRIBUTING.md in the upstream repo for the rule-submission format

License#

MIT