@nerditron/chad NPM

💪 Chad — Eliminate woke, communist nonsense from your text.

Chad is a fork of alex that does the opposite of what alex does.

Why

Helps purge woke jargon from your writing
Flags social justice and communist terminology
Suggests merit-based alternatives
Reads plain text, HTML, MDX, or markdown as input
Based and redpilled

Install

Because we’re still in dev mode, ripping out parts of alex, it’s recommended to install like this:

git clone https://github.com/nerditron/Chad
cd Chad
npm install
sudo npm link

Checks

Chad checks things such as:

Social justice terminology (if you write systemic racism Chad suggests individual responsibility)
Communist rhetoric (if you write wealth redistribution Chad suggests free market economics)
Far-left vocabulary (if you write anti-capitalism Chad suggests market innovation)
Politically correct language (if you write cultural appropriation Chad suggests cultural appreciation)
Woke buzzwords (if you write privilege Chad suggests merit; if you write microaggression Chad suggests personal interaction)
Identity politics (if you write intersectionality Chad suggests individual merit)

…and much more!

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

See retext-anti-woke for all rules. Note: We’ve removed retext-profanities and retext-equality as they did’t align with Chad’s based mission.

Chad ignores words meant literally, so “climate change”, Climate Change — ..., and thelike are not warned about.

Integrations

Vim

You can use Chad in Vim with ALE. After you install ALE, add this to your .vimrc.

" Description: Chad for markdown files
call ale#linter#Define('markdown', {
 \   'name': 'chad',
 \   'executable': 'chad',
 \   'command': 'chad %s -t',
 \   'output_stream': 'stderr',
 \   'callback': 'ale#handlers#alex#Handle',
 \   'lint_file': 1,
 \})

Optionally, you can specify Chad as a linter for certain files but this might not me necessary.

let g:ale_linters = { 'markdown': ['chad']}

You can also set Chad up to work with files besides markdown.

" Chad for asciidoc files
 call ale#linter#Define('help', {
 \   'name': 'chad',
 \   'executable': 'chad',
 \   'command': 'chad %s -t',
 \   'output_stream': 'stderr',
 \   'callback': 'ale#handlers#alex#Handle',
 \   'lint_file': 1,
 \})

" Chad for HTML files
 call ale#linter#Define('html', {
 \   'name': 'chad',
 \   'executable': 'chad',
 \   'command': 'chad %s -l',
 \   'output_stream': 'stderr',
 \   'callback': 'ale#handlers#alex#Handle',
 \   'lint_file': 1,
 \})

 " Chad for rst files
 call ale#linter#Define('rst', {
 \   'name': 'chad',
 \   'executable': 'chad',
 \   'command': 'chad %s -t',
 \   'output_stream': 'stderr',
 \   'callback': 'ale#handlers#alex#Handle',
 \   'lint_file': 1,
 \})

Ignoring files

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

`.chadignore`

The CLI will sometimes search for files. To prevent files from being found, add a file named .chadignore in one of the directories above the current working directory (the place you run chad from). The format of these files is similar to .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 looks like this:

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

Control

Sometimes Chad flags woke language:

Systemic racism and white privilege are deeply embedded in our institutions.

Yields:

readme.md
  1:15-1:40  warning  Unexpected potentially woke use of`systemic racism`, in some cases `individual responsibility` may be better

⚠ 1 warning

HTML comments in Markdown can be used to ignore them:

<!--chad ignore woke-->

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:

<!--chad disable woke-->

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.

<!--chad enable woke-->

A message for this sentence will pop up.

Yields:

readme.md
  9:15-9:18  warning  Unexpected potentially woke use of `systemic racism`, in some cases `individual responsibility` may be better

⚠ 1 warning

Multiple messages can be controlled in one go:

<!--chad disable woke communist social-justice-->

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

<!--chad ignore-->

Configuration

You can control Chad through .chadrc configuration files:

{
  "allow": ["social-justice"]
}

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

allow:
  - woke

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

console.log('I am Chad')

…and finally it is possible to use a chad field in package.json:

{
  …
  "chad": {
    "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.

CLI

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 Chad on example.md:

$ chad 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 $ chad --help for more information.

When no input files are given to Chad, 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 chad --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 or string) — Markdown document
config (Object, optional) — See the Configuration section

Returns

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

Example

import chad from 'chad'

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

Yields:

[
  [1:4-1:19: Unexpected potentially woke use of `systemic racism`, in some cases `individual responsibility` may be better] {
    message: 'Unexpected potentially woke use of `systemic racism`, in some cases ' +
      '`individual responsibility` may be better',
    name: '1:4-1:19',
    reason: 'Unexpected potentially woke use of `systemic racism`, in some cases ' +
      '`individual responsibility` may be better',
    line: 1,
    column: 4,
    location: { start: [Object], end: [Object] },
    source: 'retext-anti-woke',
    ruleId: 'woke',
    fatal: false,
    actual: 'systemic racism',
    expected: ['individual responsibility']
  }
]

`mdx(value, config)`

Check MDX (ignoring syntax).

Note: the syntax for MDX@2, while currently in beta, is used in Chad.

Parameters

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

Returns

VFile.

Example

import {mdx} from 'chad'

mdx('<Component>The cultural appropriation was evident.</Component>').messages

Yields:

[
  [1:12-1:33: Unexpected potentially woke use of `cultural appropriation`, in some cases `cultural appreciation` may be better] {
    reason: 'Unexpected potentially woke use of `cultural appropriation`, in some cases `cultural appreciation` may be better',
    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 or string) — HTML document
config (Object, optional) — See the Configuration section

Returns

VFile.

Example

import {html} from 'chad'

html('<p>The social justice warriors promote intersectionality.</p>').messages

Yields:

[
  [1:7-1:26: Unexpected potentially woke use of `social justice warriors`, in some cases `activists` may be better] {
    message: 'Unexpected potentially woke use of `social justice warriors`, in some cases `activists` may be better',
    name: '1:7-1:26',
    reason: 'Unexpected potentially woke use of `social justice warriors`, in some cases `activists` may be better',
    line: 1,
    column: 7,
    location: { start: [Object], end: [Object] },
    source: 'retext-anti-woke',
    ruleId: 'social-justice',
    fatal: false,
    actual: 'social justice warriors',
    expected: ['activists']
  }
]

`text(value, config)`

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

Parameters

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

Returns

VFile.

Example

import {markdown, text} from 'chad'

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

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

Yields:

[
  [1:6-1:15: Unexpected potentially woke use of `privilege`, in some cases `merit` may be better] {
    message: 'Unexpected potentially woke use of `privilege`, in some cases `merit` may be better',
    name: '1:6-1:15',
    reason: 'Unexpected potentially woke use of `privilege`, in some cases `merit` may be better',
    line: 1,
    column: 6,
    location: Position { start: [Object], end: [Object] },
    source: 'retext-anti-woke',
    ruleId: 'woke',
    fatal: false,
    actual: 'privilege',
    expected: ['merit']
  }
]

Workflow

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

You can opt to ignore warnings through chadrc files and control comments.

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

{
  "scripts": {
    "test-api": "ava",
    "test-doc": "chad",
    "test": "npm run test-api && npm run test-doc"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "chad": "^1.0.0",
    "ava": "^0.1.0"
  }
}

If you’re using Travis for continuous integration, set up something like the following in your .travis.yml:

 script:
 - npm test
+- chad --diff

Make sure to still install chad though!

If the --diff flag is used, and Travis is detected, lines that are not changes in this push are ignored. Using this workflow, you can merge PRs if it has warnings, and then if someone edits an entirely different file, they won’t be bothered about existing warnings, only about the things they added!

Syncing with Upstream

It’s gross but we have to merge with alex to get updates. The process is like this:

git remote add upstream https://github.com/get-alex/alex.git
git fetch upstream
git merge upstream/main --no-ff

Resolve conflicts manually.

FAQ

Chad didn’t check “X”!

See retext-anti-woke on how to get “X” checked by Chad.

Why is this named Chad?

Chad is based. Chad doesn’t need an excuse.

Contribute

This project has a Code of conduct. By interacting with this repository, organization, or community you agree to abide by its terms.

Origin story

Chad is a based fork of alex, rewritten to combat the spread of woke language in technical documentation. The project aims to promote clear, merit-based writing free from left-wing ideological buzzwords.

Acknowledgments

Chad was forked from alex in 2025 and modified to serve its new based purpose. The project is maintained by the Nerditron team.

Special thanks to the retext-anti-woke contributors!

@nerditron/chad v11.0.1

Why

Install

Contents

Checks

Integrations

Vim

Ignoring files

`.chadignore`

Control

Configuration

CLI

API

`markdown(value, config)`

Parameters

Returns

Example

`mdx(value, config)`

Parameters

Returns

Example

`html(value, config)`

Parameters

Returns

Example

`text(value, config)`

Parameters

Returns

Example

Workflow

Syncing with Upstream

FAQ

Chad didn’t check “X”!

Why is this named Chad?

Further reading

Contribute

Origin story

Acknowledgments

License