grilllisted

# grill On Hacker News and Lobsters the top comment is usually someone who has done the exact thing you wrote about. Grilling is the pass that gets a post ready to be read by that person: every claim sourced or flagged, the voice de-hyped, the story real instead of impressive, and the obvious objections already answered. You are not writing for the upvote. You are writing for the skeptic who has been here before. **Core principle:** a fabricated specific is the fastest way to lose the thread to the one reader who knows. Flag what you cannot verify; never dress a gap as confidence. ## The pass (run in order) 1. **Voice: kill the underdog.** Strip the effort-proving "I did X, I did Y, I opened the chassis, I ran the cabling" cadence. The byline already says you did the work; arguing it reads as insecure. Tell the story and let the specifics carry it. Cut sentences that exist only for rhythm or motivation ("That is the job.", "future pain with confidence."). 2. **Slop: strip the AI tells and empty hedges.** Run `scripts/grill-scan.sh <file>` for the mechanical hits (slop vocabulary, hedge phrases, em dashes, the rhythmic "That is X." tic), then read by eye for the rest. The scan is a floor, not the check. 3. **Facts: source every number, price, date, version, and third-party claim, or flag it.** For anything you cannot verify against a primary source, leave a literal `[CONFIRM: what's needed]` marker in the draft. Do not invent a plausible config value, log line, or figure