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 iliaal/whetstone --skill ia-simplifying-codegit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/iliaal/whetstoneWrote 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/iliaal/whetstone/ia-simplifying-code)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/iliaal/whetstone/ia-simplifying-code"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/iliaal/whetstone/ia-simplifying-code/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/iliaal/whetstone/ia-simplifying-code"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/iliaal/whetstone/ia-simplifying-code.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 | $0.00054 | $0.01748 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00022 | $0.00699 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00011 | $0.00350 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00005 | $0.00175 |
Grade A, and why
ia-simplifying-code 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 13d 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
94% identical to simplifying-code — 2 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 — 92 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Simplifying Code
Working rules
- Preserve behavior, interfaces, side effects, and domain intent; prove any unshipped-shape exception has no consumers outside scope.
- Before removing a guard for an external hazard, reproduce its precondition and show the hazard is handled; otherwise retain it.
- Verify standard-library substitutions on empty, null, no-match, ordering, and zero-value cases.
- For analysis-only requests, identify targets and report proposed simplifications without editing code.
Principles
| Principle | Rule |
|---|---|
| Preserve behavior | Output must do exactly what the input did, with no silent feature additions or removals. Specifically preserve: async/sync boundaries (do not convert sync to async or reverse), error propagation paths (do not alter strategy), logging/telemetry/guards/retries that encode operational intent, and domain-specific steps (do not collapse into generic helpers that hide intent). One carve-out: a shape that existed only in an earlier iteration of the current unshipped scope is not protected behavior. Verify it has no deployed, persisted, public, external, dependent-branch, or in-repo caller outside the resolved scope, and that every required caller update fits inside the edit boundary; otherwise keep the compatibility path. This narrow exemption is about shapes with provably zero consumers; it never licenses removing a guard, which is governed by the evidence bar under AI Slop Removal |
| Explicit over clever | Prefer explicit variables over nested expressions. Readable beats compact |
| Simplicity over cleanliness | Prefer straightforward code over pattern-heavy "clean" code. Three similar lines beat a premature abstraction |
| Surgical changes | Touch only what needs simplifying. Match existing style, naming conventions, and formatting of the surrounding code |
| Surface assumptions | Before changing a block, identify what imports it, what it imports, and what tests cover it. Edit dependents in the same pass |
| Delete before simplifying | Prefer deletion over simplification, simplification over optimization, and optimization over automation. A pass that finds nothing to change is a valid, complete result |
What ships with it
3 files 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.
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.
- 13d ago Changed 989e0bae140e
- 21d ago Changed · -1 lines · -10 tokens per session 9c9040e8054c
- 28d ago Changed 9402320a74d1
- 1mo ago Changed 6ba595b06369
- 1mo ago Changed 7d5d9a3313ab
- 1mo ago Changed · +1 lines 5b0698bf70c8
- 1mo ago Changed · -37 lines d5fe17503b2f
- 1mo ago First seen · 129 lines · 64 tokens per session scan A e0a8adbb8a63
ia-simplifying-code is a skill published in the GitHub repository iliaal/whetstone (35 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 54 tokens to every session and 1,748 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 94% identical to simplifying-code, differing in 2 lines, and is treated as a copy.
Other skills, from other repositories
pr-review
Comprehensive PR review across six dimensions — cost impact, environment drift, ownership gaps, SOC 2 compliance, deprecated API / version hygiene, and rollback feasibility. Each mode inspects the diff and current file state, reports findings with severity, and recommends concrete fixes. Use when preparing a PR for…
code-review
Review pull requests to this repo (a Claude Code / Copilot / Cursor platform-engineering skill plugin) for technical accuracy, security posture, structural consistency with existing domains, and completeness. Use this for any PR touching commands/, references/, examples/, skills/platform-skills/SKILL.md, or the plugin…
rubber-ducky
Use when you've planned a non-trivial change and are about to implement it, finished a complex or multi-file piece of work, just wrote tests, or are stuck on repeated failures or unexpected results — and any time the user says "rubber duck this", "rubber ducky", "get a second opinion", "sanity-check my plan", "poke…
brewcode-review
Review Brewcode product hooks, scripts, skills, agents, templates, and native compatibility contracts using the shared report-only superreview workflow.
superreview
Review a change set or explicit project scope for intent, correctness, safety, reuse, and maintainability; independently validate findings and produce one report without applying fixes.
pr-sweep
Use when you want to sweep all open pull requests across all repos, triage their status, run code reviews on unreviewed PRs, merge what's ready, fix quick blockers, and produce a full status report. Trigger when the user says "check my PRs", "close out open PRs", "what's the status of my PRs", "sweep my PRs", "PR…