Humanize OpenRouter Output in Java: A Zero-Dependency Linter for Bold-Label Bullets, Emoji and Title Case + 5 Free Tools (2026)

This Java linter checks OpenRouter-generated Markdown for consistency with company style guidelines, which require sentence case and no emojis. The tool flags markdown that violates these conventions. The linter focuses on three main issues: bold-label bullets, emojis, and title case headings. When more than 50% of bullets in a three-or-more line list are prefixed with a bold label, the linter flags the markdown.

Any markdown containing more than one emoji is also flagged, with the caveat that fenced code blocks and inline code do not count towards the emoji count. Similarly, headings that are three or more words long with all words after the first capitalized (excluding small words like "and" or "or" and acronyms like "API") are considered title case headings.

The presence of more than one such heading triggers a failure. The exit code indicates the result: 0 for a pass, 1 for required rewriting, and 2 for an API failure. The tool can output a machine-readable report using the --json flag. OpenRouter's API documentation outlines the POST request required for generating completions, specifying headers such as HTTP-Referer and X-OpenRouter-Title for app identification.

The linter sends these headers if the OPENROUTER_APP_URL environment variable is set. The tool reads the finish_reason field in the API response, normalizing it to values like tool_calls, stop, length, content_filter, or error. Anything other than "stop" is logged as a warning to stderr so that truncated updates are not posted silently.

The linter only reads the content field from the response messages, as this is what ultimately gets posted. The default model used is openai/gpt-oss-20b, a reasoning model. OpenRouter notes that reasoning tokens guide advises that reasoning is omitted from the response when reasoning.exclude is set, but the tokens are still charged.

The linter reads only the content field, regardless of whether reasoning is included or excluded, as that is what will be posted. The linter requires Java 17 or newer. Once the source code is in place, it can be run directly with the java StatusLint.java command, with no additional build steps needed.