Prevent AI over-engineering by keeping changes scoped, simple, and directly tied

Prevent AI over-engineering by keeping changes scoped, simple, and directly tied is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from AmariahAK/atlarix-skills. It costs 15 tokens per session (219 once invoked), scanned A, original, Apache-2.0.

A set of rules for keeping AI-generated code changes small, simple, and tied directly to the request. It discourages unnecessary abstractions, dependencies, rewrites, and unrelated edits.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it while planning and implementing a coding task, especially when an AI assistant may add extra structure or features. Apply it before delivery to check scope and simplicity.
Why use it?
It reduces the risk of overbuilding a solution or changing code that was not requested. It also prompts a final check that only the intended files and behavior changed.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one.

Good fit Use it while planning and implementing a coding task, especially when an AI assistant may add extra structure or features. Apply it before delivery to check scope and simplicity.

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Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/amariahak/atlarix-skills/acr-anti-overengineering
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.

Any agent
npx skills add AmariahAK/atlarix-skills --skill acr-anti-overengineering
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/AmariahAK/atlarix-skills

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for Prevent AI over-engineering by keeping changes scoped, simple, and directly tied

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/amariahak/atlarix-skills/acr-anti-overengineering/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/amariahak/atlarix-skills/acr-anti-overengineering)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/amariahak/atlarix-skills/acr-anti-overengineering"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/amariahak/atlarix-skills/acr-anti-overengineering/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for Prevent AI over-engineering by keeping changes scoped, simple, and directly tied

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/amariahak/atlarix-skills/acr-anti-overengineering"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/amariahak/atlarix-skills/acr-anti-overengineering.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 15 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 219 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
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 5.1 $0.00015 $0.00219
Opus 5 $0.00008 $0.00110
Sonnet 5 $0.00003 $0.00044
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00022

Measured 12d ago against content hash 06a8fb85e979, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-12, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

Prevent AI over-engineering by keeping changes scoped, simple, and directly tied 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 12d ago.

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.

skills/acr-anti-overengineering/SKILL.md · 25 lines

What it actually says

Prevent AI over-engineering by keeping changes scoped, simple, and directly tied

When to use this skill

Prevent AI over-engineering by keeping changes scoped, simple, and directly tied to the user's request

Source

Synced from https://github.com/PatrickJS/awesome-cursorrules/tree/main/rules/anti-overengineering.mdc.

Anti-Over-Engineering

Only change what was asked. Simplest solution first. When unsure, ask.

Do not modify unrequested code, add abstractions without a concrete need, import unnecessary dependencies, rewrite entire files for small changes, or add error handling for impossible scenarios.

Before delivery: verify you only changed requested code, check for simpler approaches, confirm no unrequested files were touched.

Files

What ships with it

1 file beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

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. 12d ago First seen · 25 lines · 15 tokens per session scan A 06a8fb85e979

Subscribe to this mod's changes

Prevent AI over-engineering by keeping changes scoped, simple, and directly tied is a skill published in the GitHub repository AmariahAK/atlarix-skills (2 stars, last pushed 5d ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 15 tokens to every session and 219 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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