- name
- simplify-codebase
- description
- Simplification audit or authorized codebase simplification whose stated objective is to remove accidental complexity. Use for evidence-backed deletion or consolidation of dead code, duplicate state, redundant APIs or layers, ownerless abstractions, obsolete compatibility or design records, and over-engineering in any language; also use for 代码简化 or 熵回收. Do not use for general code review, onboarding, style-only refactoring, or performance tuning.
- metadata
- internal: true
Simplify Codebase
Reduce the number of concepts and obligations a codebase must keep coherent. Line-count reduction is supporting evidence, not the objective. A successful run may conclude that the inspected surface is already justified.
Select mode and scope
First choose the authority mode:
- Survey for simplification audit, investigation, or candidate-finding requests. Remain read-only and return ranked evidence.
- Change for explicit simplify, remove, consolidate, refactor, or repository-documentation edit requests. Prove each cut, implement it within the authorized scope, and validate the surviving contract.
Then choose the coverage scope:
- Focused when the user names a subsystem, symbol, state machine, dependency, or suspected duplication. Cover that boundary thoroughly before expanding outward.
- Broad when the request spans the repository or asks for multiple candidates. Partition the system and account for every in-scope domain.
Deleting a reachable capability, supported interface, stored representation, or compatibility path is a product decision. Describe the consequence and obtain direction unless the user has already chosen it.
Establish the contract
- Read the repository's instructions, architecture and decision records, manifests, test guidance, and generated-file conventions.
- Inspect version-control state and preserve unrelated work. Identify vendored, generated, migration, fixture, and public-package surfaces before classifying them.
- Trace the runtime path from entrypoints through configuration, registration, dispatch, persistence, processes, and wire boundaries. Record public, dynamic, persisted, generated, and compatibility-sensitive contracts.
- In Change mode, discover the repository's real verification commands and capture a proportional baseline when feasible. A failing baseline narrows what the final checks can prove.
Preserve authorization, trust-boundary validation, security isolation, accessibility essentials, data-loss prevention, stored-format compatibility, and cleanup that establishes quiescence. Treat changes to these protections as their own explicitly authorized objective, not an incidental simplification.
The contract map is complete when all in-scope entrypoints and authority boundaries are enumerated, each is traced far enough to name its owner and observable contract, and every uninspected or externally unknowable surface is recorded as a blind spot.