#!/usr/bin/env python3 """ ai-writing-markers checker. Scans a text file for the markers catalogued in markers.json and prints a report. This is a transparency and self-editing aid, NOT an AI detector. Presence of markers is a weak signal, never proof of authorship. Usage: python3 check.py path/to/file.txt python3 check.py path/to/file.md --json cat file.txt | python3 check.py - """ import argparse import json import os import re import sys from statistics import mean, pstdev HERE = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)) DATA = os.path.join(HERE, "markers.json") # Categories matched as literal words/phrases rather than by a custom regex. LEXICAL_CATEGORIES = {"vocabulary", "transitions", "phrases"} def load_markers(path=DATA): with open(path, "r", encoding="utf-8") as fh: return json.load(fh) def split_sentences(text): # Deliberately simple: split on ., !, ? followed by whitespace. # Good enough for length statistics; not a full NLP tokenizer. parts = re.split(r"(?<=[.!?])\s+", text.strip()) return [p for p in parts if p.strip()] def word_count(text): return len(re.findall(r"\b[\w'-]+\b", text)) def find_lexical(term, text, sentence_start=False): """Return list of matched surface strings for a word/phrase term.""" escaped = re.escape(term).replace(r"\ ", r"\s+") if sentence_start: # Start of string or after sentence-ending punctuation / newline. pattern = r"(?:(?<=^)|(?<=[.!?]\s)|(?<=\n))" + escaped + r"\b" elif re.match(r"\w", term): pattern = r"\b" + escaped + r"\b" else: pattern = escaped return re.findall(pattern, text, flags=re.IGNORECASE | re.MULTILINE) def rule_of_three_hits(text): # "a, b, and c" / "a, b and c" style triples. pat = r"\b[\w-]+,\s+[\w-]+,?\s+(?:and|or)\s+[\w-]+\b" return re.findall(pat, text, flags=re.IGNORECASE) def analyze(text, markers): n_words = max(word_count(text), 1) sentences = split_sentences(text) lengths = [word_count(s) for s in sentences] or [0] results = {"categories": [], "stats": {}} for cat in markers["categories"]: cid = cat["id"] hits = [] if cid in LEXICAL_CATEGORIES: for m in cat["markers"]: found = find_lexical( m["term"], text, sentence_start=(m.get("position") == "sentence_start") ) if found: hits.append({"term": m["term"], "count": len(found)}) elif cid in ("structural", "punctuation_format"): for m in cat["markers"]: rgx = m.get("regex") if not rgx: continue try: found = re.findall(rgx, text, flags=re.IGNORECASE | re.MULTILINE) except re.error: continue if found: hits.append({"term": m["term"], "count": len(found)}) if cid == "structural": r3 = rule_of_three_hits(text) if r3: hits.append({"term": "rule_of_three", "count": len(r3)}) total = sum(h["count"] for h in hits) results["categories"].append( { "id": cid, "label": cat["label"], "total_hits": total, "per_1000_words": round(total / n_words * 1000, 2), "hits": sorted(hits, key=lambda h: -h["count"]), } ) m_len = mean(lengths) burstiness = round(pstdev(lengths) / m_len, 3) if m_len else 0.0 tokens = re.findall(r"\b[\w'-]+\b", text.lower()) ttr = round(len(set(tokens)) / max(len(tokens), 1), 3) results["stats"] = { "words": n_words, "sentences": len(sentences), "mean_sentence_length": round(m_len, 1), "min_sentence_length": min(lengths), "max_sentence_length": max(lengths), "burstiness": burstiness, "type_token_ratio": ttr, } return results def burstiness_verdict(b): if b >= 0.6: return "human-typical (>=0.65 is common in human prose)" if b >= 0.4: return "middling; consider more sentence-length variation" return "low; AI-typical. Vary sentence length aggressively" def print_report(res): s = res["stats"] line = "=" * 64 print(line) print(" ai-writing-markers report") print(" NOT an AI detector. Markers are weak signals, not proof.") print(line) print(f" words: {s['words']} sentences: {s['sentences']}") print( f" sentence length mean {s['mean_sentence_length']} " f"min {s['min_sentence_length']} max {s['max_sentence_length']}" ) print(f" burstiness: {s['burstiness']} -> {burstiness_verdict(s['burstiness'])}") print(f" type-token ratio: {s['type_token_ratio']} (higher = more varied vocab)") print(line) grand_total = 0 for cat in res["categories"]: grand_total += cat["total_hits"] header = f" {cat['label']}: {cat['total_hits']} hit(s)" if cat["total_hits"]: header += f" ({cat['per_1000_words']}/1k words)" print(header) for h in cat["hits"]: print(f" - {h['term']}: {h['count']}") print(line) print(f" total marker hits: {grand_total}") print(" Interpretation: clustering matters more than any single hit.") print(" A few hits in a long document is normal human writing.") print(line) def main(): ap = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="Scan text for AI-writing markers.") ap.add_argument("file", help="text/markdown file to scan, or - for stdin") ap.add_argument("--json", action="store_true", help="emit machine-readable JSON") ap.add_argument("--markers", default=DATA, help="path to markers.json") args = ap.parse_args() if args.file == "-": text = sys.stdin.read() else: with open(args.file, "r", encoding="utf-8") as fh: text = fh.read() markers = load_markers(args.markers) res = analyze(text, markers) if args.json: print(json.dumps(res, indent=2)) else: print_report(res) if __name__ == "__main__": main()