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 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/simplifying-code)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/iliaal/whetstone/simplifying-code"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/iliaal/whetstone/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/simplifying-code"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/iliaal/whetstone/simplifying-code.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>- NVIDIA SkillSpector warn
SkillSpector: 2 findings, up to high
These are SkillSpector’s own severities. On a checked sample its high-severity flags on skills were ~96% false positives — a documented command, a public API, a “never do X” rule — so we show them as a caution to read, not a verdict. Why →
- high Rogue Agent · line 48 Skill modifies its own code, configuration, or behavior at runtime. Self-modification enables an agent to escalate privileges, disable safety constraints, or install persistent backdoors.Fix: Prevent the skill from modifying its own code, SKILL.md, or configuration files. Treat skill files as read-only at runtime.
- low Excessive Agency · line 55 Skill's behavior or capabilities extend beyond its stated purpose. Scope creep allows an agent to perform actions unrelated to its documented functionality, increasing the attack surface.Fix: Limit the skill's scope to its documented purpose. Remove instructions that enable the agent to perform actions outside its stated functionality.
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 | $0.00073 | $0.00729 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00029 | $0.00292 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00015 | $0.00146 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00007 | $0.00073 |
Grade A, and why
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 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.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 59 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Simplifying Code
Principles
| Principle | Rule |
|---|---|
| Preserve behavior | Output must do exactly what the input did — no silent feature additions or removals. Specifically preserve: async/sync boundaries, error propagation paths, and logging side effects |
| 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 |
Process
- Read first — understand the full file and its dependents before changing anything
- Identify invariants — what must stay the same? Public API, return types, side effects, error behavior
- Identify targets — find the highest-impact simplification opportunities (see Smell → Fix table)
- Apply in order — control flow → naming → duplication → data shaping → types. Structural changes first, cosmetic last
- Verify — confirm no behavior change: tests pass, types check, imports resolve
Smell → Fix
| Smell | Fix |
|---|---|
| Deep nesting (>2 levels) | Guard clauses with early returns |
| Long function (>30 lines) | Extract into named functions by responsibility |
| Too many parameters (>3) | Group into an options/config object |
| Duplicated block (3+ occurrences) | Extract shared function. Two copies = leave inline; wait for the third |
| Magic numbers/strings | Named constants |
| Complex conditional | Extract to descriptively-named boolean or function |
| Dead code / unreachable branches | Delete entirely — no commented-out code |
Unnecessary else after return |
Remove else, dedent |
AI Slop Removal
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.
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 · 59 lines · 73 tokens per session scan A 2ba57dce477d
simplifying-code is a skill published in the GitHub repository iliaal/whetstone (35 stars, last pushed 2d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 73 tokens to every session and 729 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5.5. 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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