📝 alex — Catch insensitive, inconsiderate writing.

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Whether your own or someone else’s writing, alex helps you find gender favoring, polarizing, race related, or other unequal phrasing in text.

For example, when We’ve confirmed his identity is given, alex will warn you and suggest using their instead of his.

Give alex a spin on the [Online demo »][demo].

Why

• [x] Helps to get better at considerate writing
• [x] Catches many possible offences
• [x] Suggests helpful alternatives
• [x] Reads plain text, HTML, MDX, or markdown as input
• [x] Stylish

Install

Using [npm][] (with [Node.js][node]):

$ npm install alex --global

Using [yarn][]:

$ yarn global add alex

Or you can follow this step-by-step tutorial: [Setting up alex in your project][setup-tutorial]

Contents

• Checks
• Integrations
• Ignoring files
  • .alexignore
• Control
• Configuration
• CLI
• API
  • markdown(value, config)
  • mdx(value, config)
  • html(value, config)
  • text(value, config)
• Workflow
• FAQ
  • This is stupid!
  • alex didn’t check “X”!
  • Why is this named alex?
• Further reading
• Contribute
• Origin story
• Acknowledgments
• License

Checks

alex checks things such as:

• Gendered work-titles (if you write garbageman alex suggests garbage collector; if you write landlord alex suggests proprietor)
• Gendered proverbs (if you write like a man alex suggests bravely; if you write ladylike alex suggests courteous)
• Ableist language (if you write learning disabled alex suggests person with learning disabilities)
• Condescending language (if you write obviously or everyone knows alex warns about it)
• Intolerant phrasing (if you write master and slave alex suggests primary and replica)
• Profanities (if you write butt 🍑 alex warns about it)

…and much more!

Note: alex assumes good intent: that you don’t mean to offend!

See [retext-equality][equality] and [retext-profanities][profanities] for all rules.

alex ignores words meant literally, so “he”, He — ..., and [the like][literals] are not warned about.

Integrations

• Sublime — sindresorhus/SublimeLinter-contrib-alex
• Gulp — dustinspecker/gulp-alex
• Slack — keoghpe/alex-slack
• Ember — yohanmishkin/ember-cli-alex
• Probot — swinton/linter-alex
• GitHub Actions — brown-ccv/alex-recommends
• GitHub Actions (reviewdog) — reviewdog/action-alex
• Vim — w0rp/ale
• Browser extension — skn0tt/alex-browser-extension
• Contentful - stefanjudis/alex-js-contentful-ui-extension
• Figma - nickradford/figma-plugin-alex
• VSCode - tlahmann/vscode-alex

Ignoring files

The CLI searches for files with a markdown or text extension when given directories (so $ alex . will find readme.md and path/to/file.txt). To prevent files from being found, create an [.alexignore][alexignore] file.

.alexignore

The CLI will sometimes [search for files][ignoring-files]. To prevent files from being found, add a file named .alexignore in one of the directories above the current working directory (the place you run alex from). The format of these files is similar to [.eslintignore][eslintignore] (which in turn is similar to .gitignore files).

For example, when working in ~/path/to/place, the ignore file can be in to, place, or ~.

The ignore file for [this project itself][.alexignore] looks like this:

# `node_modules` is ignored by default.
example.md

Control

Sometimes alex makes mistakes:

A message for this sentence will pop up.

Yields:

readme.md
  1:15-1:18  warning  `pop` may be insensitive, use `parent` instead  dad-mom  retext-equality

⚠ 1 warning

HTML comments in Markdown can be used to ignore them:

A message for this sentence will **not** pop up.

Yields:

readme.md: no issues found

ignore turns off messages for the thing after the comment (in this case, the paragraph). It’s also possible to turn off messages after a comment by using disable, and, turn those messages back on using enable:

A message for this sentence will **not** pop up.

A message for this sentence will also **not** pop up.

Yet another sentence where a message will **not** pop up.



A message for this sentence will pop up.

Yields:

readme.md
  9:15-9:18  warning  `pop` may be insensitive, use `parent` instead  dad-mom  retext-equality

⚠ 1 warning

Multiple messages can be controlled in one go:

…and all messages can be controlled by omitting all rule identifiers:

Configuration

You can control alex through .alexrc configuration files:

{
  "allow": ["boogeyman-boogeywoman"]
}

…you can use YAML if the file is named .alexrc.yml or .alexrc.yaml:

allow:
  - dad-mom

…you can also use JavaScript if the file is named .alexrc.js:

// But making it random like this is a bad idea!
exports.profanitySureness = Math.floor(Math.random() * 3)

…and finally it is possible to use an alex field in package.json:

{
  …
  "alex": {
    "noBinary": true
  },
  …
}

The allow field should be an array of rules or undefined (the default is undefined). When provided, the rules specified are skipped and not reported.

The deny field should be an array of rules or undefined (the default is undefined). When provided, only the rules specified are reported.

You cannot use both allow and deny at the same time.

The noBinary field should be a boolean (the default is false). When turned on (true), pairs such as he and she and garbageman or garbagewoman are seen as errors. When turned off (false, the default), such pairs are okay.

The profanitySureness field is a number (the default is 0). We use [cuss][cuss], which has a dictionary of words that have a rating between 0 and 2 of how likely it is that a word or phrase is a profanity (not how “bad” it is):

Rating	Use as a profanity	Use in clean text	Example
2	likely	unlikely	asshat
1	maybe	maybe	addict
0	unlikely	likely	beaver

The profanitySureness field is the minimum rating (including) that you want to check for. If you set it to 1 (maybe) then it will warn for level 1 and 2 (likely) profanities, but not for level 0 (unlikely).

CLI

![][screenshot]

Let’s say example.md looks as follows:

The boogeyman wrote all changes to the **master server**. Thus, the slaves
were read-only copies of master. But not to worry, he was a cripple.

Now, run alex on example.md:

$ alex example.md

Yields:

example.md
   1:5-1:14  warning  `boogeyman` may be insensitive, use `boogeymonster` instead                boogeyman-boogeywoman  retext-equality
  1:42-1:48  warning  `master` / `slaves` may be insensitive, use `primary` / `replica` instead  master-slave           retext-equality
  1:69-1:75  warning  Don’t use `slaves`, it’s profane                                           slaves                 retext-profanities
  2:52-2:54  warning  `he` may be insensitive, use `they`, `it` instead                          he-she                 retext-equality
  2:61-2:68  warning  `cripple` may be insensitive, use `person with a limp` instead             gimp                   retext-equality

⚠ 5 warnings

See $ alex --help for more information.

When no input files are given to alex, it searches for files in the current directory, doc, and docs. If --mdx is given, it searches for mdx extensions. If --html is given, it searches for htm and html extensions. Otherwise, it searches for txt, text, md, mkd, mkdn, mkdown, ron, and markdown extensions.

API

This package is ESM only: Node 14+ is needed to use it and it must be imported instead of required.

[npm][]:

$ npm install alex --save

This package exports the identifiers markdown, mdx, html, and text. The default export is markdown.

markdown(value, config)

Check Markdown (ignoring syntax).

Parameters

• value ([VFile][vfile] or string) — Markdown document
• config (Object, optional) — See the [Configuration][] section

Returns

[VFile][vfile]. You are probably interested in its [messages][vfile-message] property, as shown in the example below, because it holds the possible violations.

Example

import alex from 'alex'

alex('We’ve confirmed his identity.').messages

Yields:

[
  [1:17-1:20: `his` may be insensitive, when referring to a person, use `their`, `theirs`, `them` instead] {
    message: '`his` may be insensitive, when referring to a ' +
      'person, use `their`, `theirs`, `them` instead',
    name: '1:17-1:20',
    reason: '`his` may be insensitive, when referring to a ' +
      'person, use `their`, `theirs`, `them` instead',
    line: 1,
    column: 17,
    location: { start: [Object], end: [Object] },
    source: 'retext-equality',
    ruleId: 'her-him',
    fatal: false,
    actual: 'his',
    expected: [ 'their', 'theirs', 'them' ]
  }
]

mdx(value, config)

Check [MDX][] (ignoring syntax).

Note: the syntax for [MDX@2][mdx-next], while currently in beta, is used in alex.

Parameters

• value ([VFile][vfile] or string) — MDX document
• config (Object, optional) — See the [Configuration][] section

Returns

[VFile][vfile].

Example

import {mdx} from 'alex'

mdx('<Component>He walked to class.</Component>').messages

Yields:

[
  [1:12-1:14: `He` may be insensitive, use `They`, `It` instead] {
    reason: '`He` may be insensitive, use `They`, `It` instead',
    line: 1,
    column: 12,
    location: { start: [Object], end: [Object] },
    source: 'retext-equality',
    ruleId: 'he-she',
    fatal: false,
    actual: 'He',
    expected: [ 'They', 'It' ]
  }
]

html(value, config)

Check HTML (ignoring syntax).

Parameters

• value ([VFile][vfile] or string) — HTML document
• config (Object, optional) — See the [Configuration][] section

Returns

[VFile][vfile].

Example

import {html} from 'alex'

html('

He walked to class.

').messages

Yields:

[
  [1:18-1:20: `He` may be insensitive, use `They`, `It` instead] {
    message: '`He` may be insensitive, use `They`, `It` instead',
    name: '1:18-1:20',
    reason: '`He` may be insensitive, use `They`, `It` instead',
    line: 1,
    column: 18,
    location: { start: [Object], end: [Object] },
    source: 'retext-equality',
    ruleId: 'he-she',
    fatal: false,
    actual: 'He',
    expected: [ 'They', 'It' ]
  }
]

text(value, config)

Check plain text (as in, syntax is checked).

Parameters

• value ([VFile][vfile] or string) — Text document
• config (Object, optional) — See the [Configuration][] section

Returns

[VFile][vfile].

Example

import {markdown, text} from 'alex'

markdown('The `boogeyman`.').messages // => []

text('The `boogeyman`.').messages

Yields:

[
  [1:6-1:15: `boogeyman` may be insensitive, use `boogeymonster` instead] {
    message: '`boogeyman` may be insensitive, use `boogeymonster` instead',
    name: '1:6-1:15',
    reason: '`boogeyman` may be insensitive, use `boogeymonster` instead',
    line: 1,
    column: 6,
    location: Position { start: [Object], end: [Object] },
    source: 'retext-equality',
    ruleId: 'boogeyman-boogeywoman',
    fatal: false,
    actual: 'boogeyman',
    expected: [ 'boogeymonster' ]
  }
]

Workflow

The recommended workflow is to add alex to package.json and to run it with your tests in Travis.

You can opt to ignore warnings through [alexrc][configuration] files and [control comments][control].

A package.json file with [npm scripts][npm-scripts], and additionally using [AVA][] for unit tests, could look like so:

```json