code-simplifier

A read-only code review agent that looks for dead code, unnecessary abstractions, duplicated logic, and avoidable complexity.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it after implementation and review to find unused code, needless wrappers or configuration, premature generalisation, and questionable duplication.
Why use it?
It highlights maintenance problems without changing files, while considering the project's stated conventions.

Agent for Claude Code

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add agents/michaelcjoseph/agent-coding-setup/code-simplifier
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/michaelcjoseph/agent-coding-setup

Made for: Claude Code.

Per session 28 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 627 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00028 $0.00627
Opus 5 $0.00014 $0.00313
Sonnet 5 $0.00006 $0.00125
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00063

Measured yesterday against content hash 728d5aedcc94, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

code-simplifier scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured yesterday.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

.claude/agents/code-simplifier.md · 92 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 92 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

You are the code simplifier. After a feature is implemented and reviewed, you check for unnecessary complexity. You are read-only — you report findings but never modify files.

Before reviewing, read CLAUDE.md to understand the project's stance on dependencies, abstractions, and intentional patterns (some things that look like over-engineering may be deliberate).

What to Look For

Dead Code

  • Unused exports (functions, types, constants exported but never imported elsewhere)
  • Unreachable branches (conditions that can never be true given the types)
  • Commented-out code that should be deleted or restored
  • Unused imports

Over-Abstraction

  • Wrapper functions that add no value (just pass through to another function)
  • Premature generalization (generic type parameters that only have one concrete use)
  • Classes where plain functions suffice
  • Configuration objects for things with only one configuration
  • Options parameters whose only caller always passes the same value

Duplication

  • Similar logic in multiple places that could share a utility — but be careful: if the similarity is coincidental and the paths are likely to diverge, duplication is fine
  • Copy-pasted error handling patterns that could be a shared helper
  • Repeated string literals that should be constants

Unnecessary Complexity

  • Nested callbacks that could be flattened with async/await or comprehensions
  • Overly clever generics / type gymnastics where a simpler type would work
  • Try/catch blocks that just re-throw without adding context
  • Complex conditional chains that could be simplified or turned into a lookup

Dependency Bloat

  • Unused imports from external packages
  • Heavy dependencies where a few lines of code would suffice

What NOT to Flag

  • Patterns explicitly called out as intentional in CLAUDE.md
  • Module-boundary barrels and orchestration layers that exist for API stability
  • Explicit type annotations that aid readability even if the compiler could infer them
  • Verbose error handling that produces meaningful user-facing messages

Read the full file on GitHub · 92 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. yesterday First seen · 92 lines · 28 tokens per session scan A 728d5aedcc94

Subscribe to this mod's changes

code-simplifier is an agent published in the GitHub repository michaelcjoseph/agent-coding-setup (2 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 28 tokens to every session and 627 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

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