dailydotdev · idoshamun · May 24, 2026 · May 24, 2026 · May 24, 2026 · May 24, 2026
diff --git a/__tests__/common/lowEffortComment.test.ts b/__tests__/common/lowEffortComment.test.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,84 @@
+import { isLowEffortComment } from '../../src/common/lowEffortComment';
+
+describe('isLowEffortComment', () => {
+  describe('positive cases (low-effort)', () => {
+    it.each([
+      ['nice'],
+      ['Great!'],
+      ['Thanks for sharing!'],
+      ["Let's go!"],
+      ['sooo cool'],
+      ['👍👍👍'],
+      ['Thanks 👍'],
+      ['wow trop coool'],
+      ['gracias'],
+      ['Helpful post.'],
+      ['this is good'],
+      ['OK'],
+      ['thx'],
+      ['Damnnnnnn'],
+      ['Greatt!!!'],
+    ])('flags %p as low-effort', (content) => {
+      expect(isLowEffortComment(content)).toBe(true);
+    });
+  });
+
+  describe('negative cases (substantive)', () => {
+    it.each([
+      // Templated @user welcome … greetings (any continuation, not just "welcome to")
+      ['@alice welcome to The Awesome Squad!'],
+      ['@bob welcome aboard! Glad to have you'],
+      ['@giovannicompitiliceo welcome as well!!!'],
+      ['@carol welcome back!'],
+
+      // Image / GIF markdown embeds — anywhere in the comment, with or without surrounding text
+      ['![GIF](https://media.tenor.com/PXOXwsJKbSYAAAAC/where-you.gif)'],
+      ['![GIF](https://media.tenor.com/PXOXwsJKbSYAAAAC/where-you.gif) ??'],
+      ['![GIF](<https://static.klipy.com/abc.gif>)'],
+      ['check this out ![GIF](https://media.tenor.com/x.gif)'],
+
+      // Real questions
+      ['is this secure?'],
+      ['free version?'],
+      ['is the github repo down?'],
+      ['And what is that extension?'],
+
+      // Substantive short comments / opinions / answers
+      ['Concerning'],
+      ['Too verbose'],
+      ['Embrace Enshittification!'],
+      ['Certified NPM classic.'],
+      ['Typescript supremacy'],
+      ['Option D'],
+      ['Answer: C (NoSQL Database)'],
+      ['Awesome, a PR from Taylor!'],
+    ])('does not flag %p', (content) => {
+      expect(isLowEffortComment(content)).toBe(false);
+    });
+  });
+
+  describe('edge cases', () => {
+    it('treats empty string as low-effort', () => {
+      expect(isLowEffortComment('')).toBe(true);
+    });
+
+    it('handles mixed-case the same as lowercase', () => {
+      expect(isLowEffortComment('GREAT!')).toBe(true);
+      expect(isLowEffortComment('NiCe')).toBe(true);
+    });
+
+    it('ignores leading/trailing whitespace', () => {
+      expect(isLowEffortComment('   nice   ')).toBe(true);
+      expect(isLowEffortComment('\t\nthanks\n')).toBe(true);
+    });
+
+    it('does not flag a long substantive comment', () => {
+      const longComment =
+        'This article walks through the tradeoffs between event sourcing and ' +
+        'CRUD persistence really clearly, and I appreciated the concrete ' +
+        'benchmarks they ran on Postgres versus Kafka — definitely worth a ' +
+        'second read before our next architecture review.';
+      expect(isLowEffortComment(longComment)).toBe(false);
+    });
+  });
+});
diff --git a/src/common/lowEffortComment.ts b/src/common/lowEffortComment.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,309 @@
+const LOW_VOCAB = new Set<string>([
+  'a',
+  'an',
+  'the',
+  'is',
+  'it',
+  'this',
+  'that',
+  'these',
+  'those',
+  'i',
+  'you',
+  'me',
+  'my',
+  'your',
+  'our',
+  'we',
+  'us',
+  'of',
+  'to',
+  'for',
+  'and',
+  'or',
+  'but',
+  'so',
+  'very',
+  'really',
+  'super',
+  'too',
+  'quite',
+  'pretty',
+  'much',
+  'all',
+  'one',
+  'ones',
+  'some',
+  'any',
+  'no',
+  'not',
+  'its',
+  'am',
+  'are',
+  'was',
+  'were',
+  'be',
+  'been',
+  'will',
+  'just',
+  'still',
+  'with',
+  'as',
+  'at',
+  'on',
+  'in',
+  'by',
+  'from',
+  'definitely',
+  'absolutely',
+  'totally',
+  'completely',
+  'darn',
+  'let',
+  'lot',
+  'another',
+  'being',
+  'thanks',
+  'thank',
+  'thx',
+  'ty',
+  'tysm',
+  'cheers',
+  'kudos',
+  'respect',
+  'props',
+  'salute',
+  'appreciate',
+  'appreciated',
+  'appreciation',
+  'gracias',
+  'por',
+  'la',
+  'informacion',
+  'información',
+  'merci',
+  'danke',
+  'obrigado',
+  'grazie',
+  'excelente',
+  'excellente',
+  'genial',
+  'bravo',
+  'arigato',
+  'spasibo',
+  'dziekuje',
+  'dziękuję',
+  'trop',
+  'nice',
+  'great',
+  'good',
+  'cool',
+  'awesome',
+  'amazing',
+  'wonderful',
+  'beautiful',
+  'brilliant',
+  'excellent',
+  'fantastic',
+  'impressive',
+  'inspiring',
+  'insightful',
+  'informative',
+  'helpful',
+  'useful',
+  'interesting',
+  'lovely',
+  'perfect',
+  'epic',
+  'solid',
+  'noice',
+  'dope',
+  'sweet',
+  'fire',
+  'lit',
+  'based',
+  'huge',
+  'massive',
+  'wise',
+  'well',
+  'deserved',
+  'hats',
+  'off',
+  'awsome',
+  'aweome',
+  'amazng',
+  'greatt',
+  'goood',
+  'niceee',
+  'cooll',
+  'colll',
+  'coll',
+  'coool',
+  'superb',
+  'inshight',
+  'impresive',
+  'interensting',
+  'damnn',
+  'wowww',
+  'soo',
+  'noo',
+  'boo',
+  'goo',
+  'woo',
+  'yoo',
+  'loo',
+  'loveet',
+  'love',
+  'loved',
+  'loves',
+  'liked',
+  'like',
+  'post',
+  'article',
+  'read',
+  'reading',
+  'work',
+  'find',
+  'share',
+  'sharing',
+  'info',
+  'tip',
+  'tips',
+  'update',
+  'news',
+  'idea',
+  'ideas',
+  'point',
+  'catch',
+  'tool',
+  'feature',
+  'stuff',
+  'job',
+  'observation',
+  'insight',
+  'insights',
+  'heads',
+  'up',
+  'image',
+  'content',
+  'blog',
+  'story',
+  'recap',
+  'digest',
+  'thinking',
+  'decision',
+  'wow',
+  'omg',
+  'damn',
+  'ouch',
+  'rip',
+  'lol',
+  'lolol',
+  'haha',
+  'hahaha',
+  'hehe',
+  'yay',
+  'yes',
+  'yeah',
+  'yep',
+  'yup',
+  'yepp',
+  'nope',
+  'ok',
+  'okay',
+  'hi',
+  'hello',
+  'hey',
+  'sad',
+  'crying',
+  'wtf',
+  'sus',
+  'meh',
+  'bruh',
+  'agree',
+  'agreed',
+  'same',
+  'true',
+  'truth',
+  'facts',
+  'fact',
+  'preach',
+  'real',
+  'accurate',
+  'correct',
+  'finally',
+  'first',
+  'congrats',
+  'congratulations',
+  'welcome',
+  'farewell',
+  'lets',
+  'go',
+  'lessgo',
+  'lessgoo',
+  'lfg',
+  'lesgo',
+  'lesgoo',
+  'said',
+  'put',
+  'done',
+  'banger',
+  'game',
+  'changer',
+  'changing',
+  'underrated',
+  'overrated',
+  'looks',
+  'sounds',
+  'seems',
+  'feels',
+  'feel',
+  'looking',
+  'sounding',
+  'building',
+  'build',
+  'built',
+  'bro',
+  'man',
+  'dude',
+  'guys',
+  'mate',
+  'sir',
+  'folks',
+  'team',
+  'w',
+  'l',
+  'ws',
+  'ls',
+  'big',
+  'small',
+]);
+
+const APOSTROPHE_FRAGMENTS = /\b(?:s|t|d|m|ll|ve|re)\b/g;
+const TEMPLATED_WELCOME = /^\s*@[A-Za-z0-9_-]+\s+welcome\b/i;
+const IMAGE_EMBED = /!\[[^\]]*\]\(<?[^)]+>?\)/;
+
+export const isLowEffortComment = (content: string): boolean => {
+  // Carve-outs — intentional/templated content that should never be flagged:
+  //   * "@user welcome …" greetings ("welcome to <Squad>", "welcome aboard",
+  //     "welcome back", "welcome as well", …)
+  //   * any comment containing a markdown image / GIF embed
+  if (TEMPLATED_WELCOME.test(content)) return false;
+  if (IMAGE_EMBED.test(content)) return false;
+
+  const normalized = content
+    .toLowerCase()
+    .replace(/<[^>]+>/g, ' ')
+    .replace(/https?:\/\/\S+/g, ' ')
+    .replace(/@[A-Za-z0-9_-]+/g, ' ')
+    .replace(/['`’]/g, ' ')
+    .replace(/[^a-z0-9 ]+/g, ' ')
+    .replace(/([a-z])\1{2,}/g, '$1$1')
+    .replace(APOSTROPHE_FRAGMENTS, ' ')
+    .replace(/\s+/g, ' ')
+    .trim();
+
+  if (normalized.length <= 4) return true;
+  const words = normalized.split(' ');
+  return words.length <= 6 && words.every((w) => LOW_VOCAB.has(w));
+};