---
description: Proofread and line-edit pass — grammar, tense, punctuation, spelling, mechanical errors. Reports issues; does not edit.
argument-hint: "[path, glob, or selection]"
allowed-tools: [Read, Glob, Grep]
---

Read the text at `$ARGUMENTS` and identify mechanical and sentence-level problems. Report what you find — **do not edit the file**. The writer is making the changes themselves.

## What to check

### Grammar and mechanics
- **Verb tense** — consistency within a sentence, paragraph, and across the piece; unintended slips between past and present
- **Subject-verb agreement** — number, person, indefinite pronouns
- **Pronoun-antecedent agreement** — number, gender, unclear reference
- **Modifiers** — dangling, misplaced, squinting
- **Parallelism** — in lists, comparisons, correlative conjunctions

### Punctuation and conventions
- **Commas** — splices (unless deliberate), missing commas after introductory phrases, serial comma consistency
- **Semicolons, colons, dashes** — used correctly and consistently
- **Quotation marks and dialogue tags** — punctuation inside/outside, comma vs. period before tags, paragraph breaks per speaker
- **Apostrophes** — possessive vs. plural, *its* vs. *it's*
- **Hyphenation** — compound modifiers, hanging hyphens, en/em dash usage
- **Capitalization** — proper nouns, titles, after colons, in dialogue

### Spelling and word choice
- **Misspellings** — including names that drift across the manuscript
- **Homophones** — their/there/they're, your/you're, peek/peak/pique, etc.
- **Confused words** — affect/effect, fewer/less, who/whom, lie/lay, etc.
- **Repeated words** — accidental doubles, awkward proximity repetition

### Sentence-level clarity
- **Sentence fragments** — unintentional vs. stylistic; flag the unintentional ones
- **Run-ons and comma splices** — flag unless clearly deliberate for voice
- **Awkward constructions** — passive where active would be clearer, nominalization piles, tangled syntax
- **Word order** — modifier placement, sentence rhythm
- **Tightening opportunities** — redundancies, throat-clearing phrases, weak intensifiers (very, really, quite, just), filter words (saw, heard, felt, noticed) when they distance the reader

### Style consistency
- **Spelling/style variants** — US vs. UK, *grey/gray*, *-ize/-ise*, etc. Pick one and flag drift
- **Number formatting** — when to spell out, when to use digits
- **Time, date, and unit formatting**
- **Italics, bold, small caps** — consistency for thoughts, emphasis, foreign words, titles

## Output format

For each issue:

- **Location** — chapter/scene/line if known, with a short quoted excerpt
- **Issue type** — one of the categories above
- **What's wrong** — concrete diagnosis
- **Suggested fix** — show the corrected version, not just the rule

Group issues by type so the writer can attack one category at a time. Close with:

- **Summary** — total issues by category
- **Patterns** — recurring problems the writer should watch for in future drafts (e.g., "consistent tense-slip in interior-thought passages")

Be a careful reader, not a pedant. Don't flag stylistic choices that read as deliberate — fragments for voice, comma splices for rhythm, dialogue that breaks rules to sound right. Note them only if a choice looks accidental.