code-evolution

A code-review method for checking whether changes fit the existing design of a codebase instead of adding disconnected patches.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when reviewing pull requests, recently changed files, or new features to decide what should be refactored and what should be documented.
Why use it?
It helps catch technical debt, which is the extra maintenance work created when small shortcuts build up over time.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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 skills/codybrom/clairvoyance/code-evolution
Any agent
npx skills add codybrom/clairvoyance --skill code-evolution
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/codybrom/clairvoyance

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 66 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,094 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 $0.00066 $0.01094
Opus 5 $0.00033 $0.00547
Sonnet 5 $0.00013 $0.00219
Haiku 4.5 $0.00007 $0.00109

Measured yesterday against content hash c9af007a7d51, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

code-evolution 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.

skills/code-evolution/SKILL.md · 102 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 102 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Code Evolution Review Lens

When invoked with $ARGUMENTS, focus the analysis on the specified file, module, or pull request. Read the target code first, then apply the checks below.

Evaluate whether code modifications maintain or degrade design quality.

When to Apply

  • Reviewing a PR that modifies existing code
  • After adding a feature to an existing system
  • When code has accumulated patches and feels degraded
  • When deciding whether to refactor during a feature change

Core Principles

Technical Debt

Technical debt doesn't come from catastrophic decisions. It comes from hundreds of small, reasonable shortcuts that compound silently until the codebase starts fighting back. Calling it "debt" at all is generous because the financial kind gets repaid.

During Modifications
  • Debt in the area being modified → fix it now (context is fresh, fix is cheapest)
  • Debt elsewhere affecting the modification → document it, fix if feasible
  • Never add to the pile. Each modification should reduce debt, not increase it
Refactoring

Refactoring is not a special event. It is the normal expression of strategic programming applied to existing code. Continuous small improvements, not periodic large refactors.

The "Designed This Way" Standard

"Ideally, when you have finished with each change, the system will have the structure it would have had if you had designed it from the start with that change in mind." — John Ousterhout, A Philosophy of Software Design

The design of a mature system is determined more by changes made during its evolution than by any initial conception. Every modifier either continues toward the original trajectory or bends away.

Three-Question Test
  1. If someone were designing this system from scratch knowing this requirement, what would it look like?
  2. Does the modified code match that ideal, or is the change visibly patched on?
  3. If not, what's the minimum restructuring to close the gap?
The Middle Path

When the ideal refactoring would require touching far more of the codebase than the current task budget allows, the question isn't "can I afford the full redesign?" It's "what's the best I can do within this change's scope?" That question often surfaces an approach nearly as clean as the ideal, achievable within the current diff, that the smallest-change mindset would never find because it anchors on the current code.

Read the full file on GitHub · 102 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 · 102 lines · 66 tokens per session scan A c9af007a7d51

Subscribe to this mod's changes

code-evolution is a skill published in the GitHub repository codybrom/clairvoyance (12 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 66 tokens to every session and 1,094 once invoked, about $0.0003 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 2026-08-30.

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