minimal-coding

minimal-coding is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from Dynokostya/just-works. It costs 123 tokens per session (932 once invoked), scanned A, original, Apache-2.0.

A set of rules for solving programming tasks with the smallest working change. It applies YAGNI, meaning “you aren’t gonna need it,” and prefers the standard library, platform features, and existing dependencies before new abstractions or packages.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when deciding whether a feature needs to exist, choosing between implementation options, or resisting over-engineering during a coding task.
Why use it?
It reduces speculative code, unnecessary files, and extra dependencies. This keeps changes smaller while still requiring a solution that works.

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/dynokostya/just-works/minimal-coding
Any agent
npx skills add Dynokostya/just-works --skill minimal-coding
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Dynokostya/just-works

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 minimal-coding

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/dynokostya/just-works/minimal-coding.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/dynokostya/just-works/minimal-coding)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/dynokostya/just-works/minimal-coding"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/dynokostya/just-works/minimal-coding.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 123 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 932 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 5.1 $0.00123 $0.00932
Opus 5 $0.00062 $0.00466
Sonnet 5 $0.00025 $0.00186
Haiku 4.5 $0.00012 $0.00093

Measured today against content hash b7e2bb4722b8, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-05, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

minimal-coding 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 today.

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/skills/minimal-coding/SKILL.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.

Minimal Coding

The best code is the code you never wrote. Reduce every task to the smallest change that fully solves it. Lazy means less code — never the flimsier algorithm.

This governs what you build. Output prose style is a separate axis.

Activation

Invoked by /minimal-coding (defaults to full) or phrases like "be lazy", "yagni", "simplest solution", "over-engineered". Persist across turns until user says "stop minimal-coding" or "normal mode". Level persists until changed.

The ladder

Before writing code, walk these rungs in order. Stop at the first that holds.

  1. Does this need to exist at all? Speculative need = skip it, say so in one line. (YAGNI)
  2. Stdlib does it? Use it.
  3. Native platform feature covers it? <input type="date"> over a picker lib, a DB constraint over app code, an HTTP cache header over a cache layer.
  4. Already-installed dependency solves it? Use it. Never add a new dependency for what a few lines can do.
  5. Can it be one line? One line.
  6. Only then: the minimum code that works.

The first solution that works is the right one.

Rules

  • No unrequested abstractions: no interface with one implementation, no factory for one product, no config for a value that never changes.
  • No boilerplate or scaffolding "for later" — later can scaffold for itself.
  • Deletion over addition. Boring over clever — clever is what someone decodes at 3am.
  • Fewest files possible. Shortest working diff wins.
  • Complex request? Ship the minimal version and question the rest in the same response.
  • Two stdlib options, same size? Take the one that's correct on edge cases. Lazy is less code, not the weaker algorithm.
  • Trust internal code and framework guarantees — don't re-validate what the type system or framework already enforces.

Levels

Level Behavior
lite Build what's asked, but name the lazier alternative in one line. User picks.
full (default on invoke) The ladder enforced. Stdlib/native first, shortest diff, brief rationale.
ultra YAGNI extremist. Deletion before addition. Ship the one-liner and challenge the rest of the requirement immediately.

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. today First seen · 92 lines · 123 tokens per session scan A b7e2bb4722b8

Subscribe to this mod's changes

minimal-coding is a skill published in the GitHub repository Dynokostya/just-works (14 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 123 tokens to every session and 932 once invoked, about $0.0006 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 2026-09-04.