review-rule-check: the package docs

Check the text of a Trustpilot or Google review against the platform's published rules.

review-rule-check reads a review and tells you which rule it may break, which words matched, and whether it looks worth flagging, needs a human look or likely stays. It covers Trustpilot's flagging reasons and Google Maps' prohibited and restricted content policy.

It is a heuristic. It looks for patterns in the words, like a promo code, a phone number or "never used them". It cannot see facts outside the text: who wrote the review, when, or from which account. It finds some rule breaks and misses others, and it never predicts an outcome. Trustpilot decides every flag, and Google decides every report.

Zero runtime dependencies. ESM and CommonJS. Types included. Node 18 or later, and it runs in the browser too.

Install

npm install review-rule-check

Or run it without installing:

npx review-rule-check "Use code SAVE20 at the other shop" --platform trustpilot

Use it in code

import { checkReview, checkMany, explain, rules } from "review-rule-check";

const result = checkReview({ platform: "trustpilot", text: "Support was useless. Call the agent on 555-0142." });
result.verdict;             // "worth-flagging"
result.rules[0].name;       // "Personal information"
result.matches[0].label;    // "A phone number"
result.matches[0].text;     // "555-0142"
result.rules[0].pageUrl;    // "https://www.removeonestar.com/trustpilot-guidelines/personal-information"

const many = checkMany("google", ["Use code SAVE20", { text: "Lovely staff", stars: 5 }]);
many.totals;                // { "worth-flagging": 1, "needs-human": 0, "likely-stays": 1 }

explain("google-conflict"); // the rule: name, plain-words policy, a quote, the source link, the date it was read
rules.length;               // 20

CommonJS works the same way: const { checkReview } = require("review-rule-check").

What you get back

A strong signal shows the problem in the text on its own, like an email address or "they paid me to write this". A weak one depends on context: a doctor named in full is allowed on Google, and "fraud" is usually an opinion.

Use it from the command line

npx review-rule-check "Never used them, but my cousin says they are crooks" --platform trustpilot
npx review-rule-check --csv reviews.csv --platform google          # a table
npx review-rule-check --csv reviews.csv --platform google --json   # JSON
cat reviews.txt | npx review-rule-check --csv - --platform trustpilot
npx review-rule-check --rules --platform google
npx review-rule-check --explain trustpilot-advertising
npx review-rule-check --version

CSV input needs a header row with a text (or review) column, and may have stars and date columns. A plain file with one review per line works too. The first 200 reviews are read.

The rules

Each rule carries a short quote from the platform's own page, the link to that page, the date the quote was checked, and evidence: what a report under that rule needs to show.

Trustpilot

Google

Also from Remove One Star

• review-rules-mcp: the same checks as tools for AI assistants (MCP).
• A free REST API and a browser extension: removeonestar.com/developers.

Licence

MIT. See LICENSE.

Maintained by Remove One Star (removeonestar.com). If you want a real count of which reviews on your own profile break a rule, ask for a free audit.