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Word Filtering

Status: Current Last updated: 2026-05-11 18:58 EDT

Word filters restrict analysis to utterances containing (or not containing) specific words. Primarily useful with KWAL (keyword search) and COMBO (boolean search), but available on all commands.

Include words

Only process utterances containing a specific word:

chatter clan kwal --include-word "the" file.cha
chatter clan combo --include-word "dog" --include-word "cat" file.cha

CLAN equivalent: +s"the", +s"dog" +s"cat"

Multiple --include-word flags use OR logic by default: utterances containing any listed word are included.

Exclude words

Skip utterances containing specific words:

chatter clan freq --exclude-word "um" --exclude-word "uh" file.cha

CLAN equivalent: -s"um" -s"uh"

Case sensitivity

By default, word matching is case-insensitive (the matches The, THE, the).

The CLAN +k flag (and its --case-sensitive rewrite) is currently non-functional: the rewriter at crates/clan/clan-core/src/clan_args.rs:104 produces --case-sensitive, but no clap field consumes it. Word matching today is always case-insensitive. Tracked alongside +dN and +fEXT in docs/superpowers/plans/2026-05-11-clan-rewriter-honor-three-flags.md. See also flag-translation.md.

What counts as a “word”

Word matching uses the same countable-word logic as other commands:

  • Regular words and proper nouns match
  • Untranscribed markers (xxx, yyy, www) do not match
  • Zero words (0word) do not match
  • Fillers and fragments (&-um, &~frag) do not match
  • Events (&=laughs) do not match