TR
The Ruthless Editor
🔵 Stable 🕐 updated 2026-09-04
🔷 SkillSpec L3
pm-craft
Run any draft through the editor who owes you nothing — the buried lede surfaced, the throat-clearing cut, the hedges un-stacked, every paragraph made to answer so what — with a target of 30% shorter and the voice intact. Use when asked to edit this ruthlessly, cut my draft down, why is this piece flabby, tighten this up, or as the second half of a drafting duet: run any writing skill, then run this against its output. Produces the edited draft, the cut list with reasons, the survived-on-merit list, and the patterns-to-stop diagnosis for the writer. Adversarial to the prose, loyal to the point.
What to give it
▸ The draft — pasted whole; the editor reads everything before touching anything
▸ The job — who reads this, deciding what, in how much time; a board memo and a newsletter tolerate different fat
▸ What cannot be cut — the legally required line, the name that must be thanked, the caveat that is genuinely load-bearing
▸ The soreness level — a light pass or the full treatment; both are honest, only one is comfortable
▸ If run as a duet — which skill produced the draft, so the diagnosis can address the *format's* tendencies too, not just the writer's
✅ The bar it holds itself to
Every skill in this library self-verifies — these are this skill's own quality checks, straight from its definition.
✓ The lede in the edit is the piece's actual point, wherever it was hiding
✓ The cut hits or approaches 30% unless the brief said light pass
✓ Every cut has a category and a reason — no silent deletions
✓ The voice survives: the edit sounds like the writer, not the editor
✓ The survived list exists, so the editing teaches rather than just subtracts
✓ The diagnosis names patterns, not instances
⚠️ What it refuses to do
**Compressing instead of cutting.** Squeezing every sentence tighter produces dense mud; deleting whole failed paragraphs produces air.
**Sanding off the voice.** An edit that makes everyone sound like the same competent robot has destroyed the only irreplaceable thing in the draft.
**Cutting the load-bearing caveat.** Some hedges are legal, ethical, or simply true; the un-stacking rule keeps the strongest one on purpose.
**Editing into your own style.** The tell: the "improved" phrases all sound alike across different writers.
**Diagnosis as insult.** "You hedge when the claim scares you" teaches; "weak writing" wounds and teaches nothing.
Install
npx pm-claude-skills add --agent claude # or codex · cursor · gemini · hermes
# or one-line MCP (every skill, any client):
claude mcp add pm-skills -- npx -y pm-claude-skills-mcpRelated skills
🔌 Embed this skill
Drop this on your blog, docs, or site — it renders a "Run this skill" card:
<div data-pm-skill="the-ruthless-editor"></div>
<script src="https://mohitagw15856.github.io/pm-claude-skills/embed.js" async></script>💬 Discussion