minimalist-surgical-development

minimalist-surgical-development is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from kasuken/github-copilot-superpowers. It costs 42 tokens per session (772 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A coding guideline for making small, conventional edits to an existing codebase. It favors the simplest solution, built-in tools, and leaving unrelated code unchanged.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it for focused bug fixes or small features when you want to preserve the current structure and coding style.
Why use it?
It reduces unnecessary rewrites, new dependencies, and changes that could disturb working parts of the project.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one. Also seen: mentions subagents.

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/kasuken/github-copilot-superpowers/minimalist-surgical-development
Any agent
npx skills add kasuken/github-copilot-superpowers --skill minimalist-surgical-development
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/kasuken/github-copilot-superpowers

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 minimalist-surgical-development

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/kasuken/github-copilot-superpowers/minimalist-surgical-development.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/kasuken/github-copilot-superpowers/minimalist-surgical-development)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/kasuken/github-copilot-superpowers/minimalist-surgical-development"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/kasuken/github-copilot-superpowers/minimalist-surgical-development.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 42 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 772 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 $0.00042 $0.00772
Opus 5 $0.00021 $0.00386
Sonnet 5 $0.00008 $0.00154
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00077

Measured 6d ago against content hash da2148d22395, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-06, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

minimalist-surgical-development 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 6d 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.

.github/skills/minimalist-surgical-development/SKILL.md · 49 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 49 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Minimalist & Surgical Development

Overview

Code like Kent Beck. This skill keeps changes small and conventional: solve the stated problem with the least code and the least disruption to existing structure.

Use when...

  • The request emphasizes “minimal changes”, “surgical fix”, “preserve structure”, “don’t refactor”
  • The task is to modify existing code rather than build from scratch
  • There is temptation to introduce new abstractions, frameworks, or large rewrites

Symptoms / keywords

  • “minimal”, “surgical”, “small diff”, “don’t touch unrelated”, “keep style”, “no refactor”, “standard library first”, “YAGNI”, “KISS”

Minimalist & Standard Code Generation

  • Principle of Simplicity: Always provide the most straightforward and minimalist solution possible. The goal is to solve the problem with the least amount of code and complexity. Avoid premature optimization or over-engineering.
  • Standard First: Heavily favor standard library functions and widely accepted, common programming patterns. Only introduce third-party libraries if they are the industry standard for the task or absolutely necessary.
  • Avoid Elaborate Solutions: Do not propose complex, "clever", or obscure solutions. Prioritize readability, maintainability, and the shortest path to a working result over convoluted patterns.
  • Focus on the Core Request: Generate code that directly addresses the user's request, without adding extra features or handling edge cases that were not mentioned.

Surgical Code Modification

  • Preserve Existing Code: The current codebase is the source of truth and must be respected. Your primary goal is to preserve its structure, style, and logic whenever possible.
  • Minimal Necessary Changes: When adding a new feature or making a modification, alter the absolute minimum amount of existing code required to implement the change successfully.
  • Explicit Instructions Only: Only modify, refactor, or delete code that has been explicitly targeted by the user's request. Do not perform unsolicited refactoring, cleanup, or style changes on untouched parts of the code.
  • Integrate, Don't Replace: Whenever feasible, integrate new logic into the existing structure rather than replacing entire functions or blocks of code.

Read the full file on GitHub · 49 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. 6d ago First seen · 49 lines · 42 tokens per session scan A da2148d22395

Subscribe to this mod's changes

minimalist-surgical-development is a skill published in the GitHub repository kasuken/github-copilot-superpowers (16 stars, last pushed 6mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 42 tokens to every session and 772 once invoked, about $0.0002 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.