Find the phrases thatread as machine-written.

Counts, lines and columns for known signs of LLM text. Never a verdict.

What began as a weekend repair stand has grown into a full-service shop —em-dash5:267weak but the heart of it hasn't changed.

Nestledpuffery7:143weak at the foot of the Ridgeline trail system, we've had a front-row seat as Pine Hollow has grown into a vibrantvocabulary7:253moderate cycling destination, and we're proud to have played a part in that story.

Ridgeline isn't just a place to buy a bike — it'snegative-parallelism11:11moderate a gathering place for the local riding community.

Sample written by Claude Fable 5.1 on 2026-09-19 for this corpus; prompt in corpus/MANIFEST.json.

What it gives you

A finding, not a feeling.

Every result is a place in your document and the name of the pattern found there. Nothing is averaged into a score.

…Pine Hollow has grown into a vibrant cycling destination…

vocabularyRuleWhich pattern matched, by name.

7:253Line : columnWhere it is. Go straight to it.

moderateWeightHow much one hit means alone.

3 · 5.6/1kCount and rateFor this rule in this file. Never added up.

Weak

Common in careful human writing, so only the density means anything.

Moderate

A recognisable habit. A handful in a short document is a pattern.

Strong

Leftovers from a chat window, not a writing style. One hit is worth reading. It still shows only that the text went through a chat window, not who wrote it.

Rules overlap. “Vibrant” is counted by both vocabulary and puffery, which is why the counts are never summed into one number.

Try it

Paste a draft. See where it reads as machine-written.

This is the linter itself, running in your browser as you type. Your text goes nowhere.

# About Ridgeline Bike Works ## Our Story Ridgeline Bike Works started in 2009 in a converted garage on Alder Street, when Tom and Maria Castellano decided that Pine Hollow deserved a bike shop that treated every rider like a neighbor. What began as a weekend repair stand has grown into a full-service shop — but the heart of it hasn't changed. We're still family-owned, still fixing flats while you wait, and still happy to talk trails for as long as you'd like. Today, the shop is run by the second generation of Castellanos alongside a small team of mechanics who ride the same roads and trails you do. Nestled at the foot of the Ridgeline trail system, we've had a front-row seat as Pine Hollow has grown into a vibrant cycling destination, and we're proud to have played a part in that story. ## More Than a Bike Shop Ridgeline isn't just a place to buy a bike — it's a gathering place for the local riding community. On any given Saturday morning, you'll find commuters, weekend warriors, and first-time riders swapping stories over coffee before the group ride rolls out. We believe that cycling is for everyone, and we've built our shop around that idea. Whether you're looking for your first mountain bike, tuning up a road bike that's been in the family for decades, or just need a tube and some friendly advice, you'll get the same honest, no-pressure service every time. ## What We Offer - **Expert Repairs:** From quick adjustments to full overhauls, our certified mechanics handle every job with meticulous attention to detail. Most repairs are finished within 48 hours. - **Quality Bikes:** We carry a carefully curated selection of mountain, road, gravel, and kids' bikes from brands we trust and ride ourselves. - **Professional Fitting:** A properly fitted bike makes all the difference. Our fitting service helps you ride longer, faster, and more comfortably. - **Rentals and Demos:** Visiting Pine Hollow? Our rental fleet lets you experience the trails on a high-quality, well-maintained bike. - **Community Rides:** Free weekly group rides for all skill levels, because riding is better together. ## Our Values Our commitment to the community goes beyond the shop floor. Every year, we partner with Pine Hollow Elementary to refurbish donated bikes for local kids, and we volunteer with the Ridgeline Trail Alliance to help build and maintain the trails that make this area so special. We see these efforts as a crucial part of who we are, not an extra. We also believe in doing things the right way. That means honest recommendations, fair prices, and never selling you something you don't need. If a $15 part will solve your problem, that's what we'll suggest — even if there's a shinier option on the wall. ## Come Say Hello At the end of the day, Ridgeline Bike Works is about people. It's about the kid who learns to ride without training wheels, the retiree discovering gravel riding, and the racer chasing a personal best. Whatever your goals are, we're here to help you reach them. Stop by the shop at 214 Alder Street, give us a call, or join us for a Saturday ride. We can't wait to meet you — and your bike. **Hours:** Tuesday–Saturday, 10am–6pm | Sunday, 11am–4pm | Closed Mondays

# About Ridgeline Bike Works

## Our Story

Ridgeline Bike Works started in 2009 in a converted garage on Alder Street, when Tom and Maria Castellano decided that Pine Hollow deserved a bike shop that treated every rider like a neighbor. What began as a weekend repair stand has grown into a full-service shop — but the heart of it hasn't changed. We're still family-owned, still fixing flats while you wait, and still happy to talk trails for as long as you'd like.

Today, the shop is run by the second generation of Castellanos alongside a small team of mechanics who ride the same roads and trails you do. Nestled at the foot of the Ridgeline trail system, we've had a front-row seat as Pine Hollow has grown into a vibrant cycling destination, and we're proud to have played a part in that story.

## More Than a Bike Shop

Ridgeline isn't just a place to buy a bike — it's a gathering place for the local riding community. On any given Saturday morning, you'll find commuters, weekend warriors, and first-time riders swapping stories over coffee before the group ride rolls out. We believe that cycling is for everyone, and we've built our shop around that idea.

Whether you're looking for your first mountain bike, tuning up a road bike that's been in the family for decades, or just need a tube and some friendly advice, you'll get the same honest, no-pressure service every time.

## What We Offer

- **Expert Repairs:** From quick adjustments to full overhauls, our certified mechanics handle every job with meticulous attention to detail. Most repairs are finished within 48 hours.
- **Quality Bikes:** We carry a carefully curated selection of mountain, road, gravel, and kids' bikes from brands we trust and ride ourselves.
- **Professional Fitting:** A properly fitted bike makes all the difference. Our fitting service helps you ride longer, faster, and more comfortably.
- **Rentals and Demos:** Visiting Pine Hollow? Our rental fleet lets you experience the trails on a high-quality, well-maintained bike.
- **Community Rides:** Free weekly group rides for all skill levels, because riding is better together.

## Our Values

Our commitment to the community goes beyond the shop floor. Every year, we partner with Pine Hollow Elementary to refurbish donated bikes for local kids, and we volunteer with the Ridgeline Trail Alliance to help build and maintain the trails that make this area so special. We see these efforts as a crucial part of who we are, not an extra.

We also believe in doing things the right way. That means honest recommendations, fair prices, and never selling you something you don't need. If a $15 part will solve your problem, that's what we'll suggest — even if there's a shinier option on the wall.

## Come Say Hello

At the end of the day, Ridgeline Bike Works is about people. It's about the kid who learns to ride without training wheels, the retiree discovering gravel riding, and the racer chasing a personal best. Whatever your goals are, we're here to help you reach them.

Stop by the shop at 214 Alder Street, give us a call, or join us for a Saturday ride. We can't wait to meet you — and your bike.

**Hours:** Tuesday–Saturday, 10am–6pm | Sunday, 11am–4pm | Closed Mondays

24findings from 7 rules

Rates are per 1,000 words. Rules overlap, so no total score.

Click a finding to jump to it. No request leaves this page.

The difference

Same text. Only one of these tells you what to fix.

A detector

Nestled at the foot of the Ridgeline trail system, we've had a front-row seat as Pine Hollow has grown into a vibrant cycling destination, and we're proud to have played a part in that story.

Ridgeline isn't just a place to buy a bike — it's a gathering place for the local riding community.

Likely AIone verdict, whole document

It does not say which sentence, or why. (The shape of what a detector hands back, not a real run.)

Tells

Nestled at the foot of the Ridgeline trail system, we've had a front-row seat as Pine Hollow has grown into a vibrant cycling destination, and we're proud to have played a part in that story.

Ridgeline isn't just a place to buy a bike — it's a gathering place for the local riding community.

7:143pufferyweak

7:253pufferyweak

7:253vocabularymoderate

11:11negative-parallelismmoderate

11:44em-dashweak

A verdict is an accusation. A line number is a place to start editing.

Tested on its own corpus

Only one rule clears the gap.

For each rule: the lowest rate in any machine file minus the highest in any human file. Above zero, every machine file outscored every human one.

← a human file reaches the machinesmachines clear every human →

-20-15-10-50+5

vocabulary

+2.8machine 3.5+ vs human up to 0.8

copula-avoidance

0machine files score 0 too

negative-parallelism

0machine files score 0 too

ing-analysis

0machine files score 0 too

significance-inflation

0machine files score 0 too

vague-attribution

0machine files score 0 too

challenges-formula

0machine files score 0 too

inline-header-lists

0machine files score 0 too

bold-overuse

0machine files score 0 too

transition-openers

-0.6human up to 0.6, machine from 0

puffery

-0.8human up to 0.8, machine from 0

heading-style

-0.8human up to 0.8, machine from 0

rule-of-three*

-4.5human up to 4.5, machine from 0

em-dash

-16.5human up to 18.1, machine from 1.6

Findings per 1,000 words. 6 human files, 5 machine files. -16.5 on em-dash: a human file at 18.1, above every machine file. * off by default. Not shown: vague-association, chat-residue, model-artifacts, didactic-disclaimers, which fired on no file.

Observed 2026-09-19 with tells 0.1.0, 14 files. Reproduce: node bin/tells.mjs corpus --date 2026-09-19

The rates below are in-sample. The rules were revised after looking at the first corpus run, and one rule (rule-of-three) was taken out of the default set after a hostile review read this table and a set of eight human passages written for that review. The first run is kept unedited in studies/2026-09-19-corpus/first-run-results.json, and the study README lists every cell that moved, why, and what the demotion was for. No corpus text was changed at any point, and no machine text was edited after the linter first ran on it. The machine texts were also written by an author who had read the rule list. Treat this table as a demonstration of what the rules count, on files they were tuned against. The table runs every rule, including the two that are off by default, because it is the evidence for why they are off.

The machine samples were written by the same model family that built the linter; rates in this table describe these files and are not an accuracy claim about any detector, including this one.

What Tells cannot do.

Tells cannot determine authorship.
No single rule is evidence on its own; the guide this draws on says the same.
Seven detectors flagged an average of 61% of TOEFL essays by non-native English writers as machine-written (Liang et al. 2023); surface features are not origin.
This report does not make text undetectable and does not try to.

The figure is from Liang et al., GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers, Patterns, 2023, arXiv:2304.02819.

It gives no probability and no score. It does not rewrite anything. A person can write every pattern here, and a model can write none of them.

Use it

One command, nothing to install.

It works like a code linter: named rules, a line and column for every finding, and a failing exit when you ask for one.

# check a file
npx github:CandyFlex/tells draft.md

# fail a build on chat leftovers
npx github:CandyFlex/tells draft.md --fail-on strong

# an annotated page you can read
npx github:CandyFlex/tells render draft.md --out report.html

Not on npm yet: npm view tells returned E404 (not in this registry) on 2026-09-19, so this runs it straight from the repository.

Formats: text, json, md, sarif
In CI: Exits non-zero once --fail-on is met
Requires: Node 20 or newer. No dependencies. MIT.
Rules: Every rule, its sources and its false positives: the rules page