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.
npx skills add borhen68/SkillEngine --skill code-simplificationgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/borhen68/SkillEngineWrote 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.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/borhen68/skillengine/code-simplification)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/borhen68/skillengine/code-simplification"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/borhen68/skillengine/code-simplification/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.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/borhen68/skillengine/code-simplification"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/borhen68/skillengine/code-simplification.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>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.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00051 | $0.03313 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00020 | $0.01325 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00010 | $0.00663 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00005 | $0.00331 |
Grade A, and why
code-simplification 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 1mo 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.
This is a copy
88% identical to code-simplification — 56 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 362 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Code Simplification
Inspired by the Claude Code Simplifier plugin. Adapted here as a model-agnostic, process-driven skill for any AI coding agent.
Overview
Complexity is the silent killer of software projects. It doesn't announce itself with a crash — it accumulates one clever abstraction at a time, one unnecessary indirection at a time, until the codebase becomes a maze that even its authors fear to touch. Simplification is the deliberate act of reversing this entropy.
The simplification contract: Every change must preserve exact behavior while reducing cognitive load. The goal is not fewer lines — it's code that is easier to read, understand, modify, and debug. Before simplifying, understand why the complexity exists (Chesterton's Fence). Then remove what doesn't earn its keep.
Real-world impact: A study of 700+ codebases found that complexity metrics predict bug density better than any other factor. Code that's hard to read is code that's hard to fix — and code that's hard to fix accumulates workarounds until it becomes unmaintainable.
When to Use
- After a feature is working and tests pass, but the implementation feels heavier than it needs to be
- During code review when readability or complexity issues are flagged
- When you encounter deeply nested logic, long functions, or unclear names
- When refactoring code written under time pressure
- When consolidating related logic scattered across files
- After merging changes that introduced duplication or inconsistency
When NOT to use:
- Code is already clean and readable — don't simplify for the sake of it
- You don't understand what the code does yet — comprehend before you simplify
- The code is performance-critical and the "simpler" version would be measurably slower
- You're about to rewrite the module entirely — simplifying throwaway code wastes effort
The Five Principles
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.
- 1mo ago First seen · 362 lines · 51 tokens per session scan A 58a1f02f2ae3
code-simplification is a skill published in the GitHub repository borhen68/SkillEngine (17 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 51 tokens to every session and 3,313 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 88% identical to code-simplification, differing in 56 lines, and is treated as a copy.
Other skills, from other repositories
code-review-and-quality
A code-review guide for checking changes across correctness, readability, architecture, security, and performance before they are merged.
code-simplification
A code-review and refactoring guide for making existing code easier to read while keeping its behavior unchanged. Refactoring means changing how code is organized without changing what it does.
doubt-driven-development
A development practice that puts an independent, fresh-context challenge in front of important coding decisions.
code-review-and-quality
Conducts multi-axis code review. Use before merging any change. Use when reviewing code written by yourself, another agent, or a human. Use when you need to assess code quality across multiple dimensions before it enters the main branch. Use when asked to review a diff or a pull request, even when the diff is pasted…
code-simplification
Simplifies code for clarity. Use when refactoring code for clarity without changing behavior. Use when code works but is harder to read, maintain, or extend than it should be. Use when reviewing code that has accumulated unnecessary complexity.
doubt-driven-development
Subjects every non-trivial decision to a fresh-context adversarial review before it stands. Use when you want every assumption cross-examined before proceeding, when stress-testing a plan for hidden failure modes, when correctness matters more than speed, when working in unfamiliar code, when stakes are high…