code-simplification

A code-cleanup workflow that aims to make software smaller without changing what it does.

In plain words
What is it for?
It looks for dead code, duplicate logic, and overcomplicated designs, then uses history, callers, and tests to assess whether a simplification is safe.
Why use it?
It helps remove unused code, repeated logic, and abstractions that add complexity while checking why each part exists before deleting it.

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/momentmaker/kaijutsu/code-simplification
Any agent
npx skills add momentmaker/kaijutsu --skill code-simplification
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/momentmaker/kaijutsu

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 88 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,081 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 $0.00088 $0.01081
Opus 5 $0.00044 $0.00541
Sonnet 5 $0.00018 $0.00216
Haiku 4.5 $0.00009 $0.00108

Measured 2d ago against content hash e1ce037403d7, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

code-simplification 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 2d 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.

skills/community/code-simplification/SKILL.md · 97 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 97 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Code Simplification

Adapted from addyosmani/agent-skills under the MIT License. Copyright (c) Addy Osmani. Modifications by kaijutsu maintainers — composed with polish and blunder-hunt.

Goal: smaller code, same behavior. The deliverable is a diff that reduces LOC, removes abstractions that earn nothing, and consolidates near-duplicates.

When to invoke

  • A file is over 500 lines
  • A module's surface has more functions than it has callers per function
  • Duplicate logic spotted in 2+ places
  • User says "this feels overengineered" or "clean this up"

Process

Step 1: Read before deleting (Chesterton's Fence)

For every candidate removal, ask:

  • Why is this here? Find the original commit (git log -p <file>) and read the message.
  • Who calls it? grep -r '<symbol>' or use LSP find-references.
  • What test covers it?

If you can't answer all three, DO NOT remove it. The fence exists for a reason; first understand the reason, then decide.

Step 2: Find candidates

  • Dead code: unreferenced exports, unreachable branches, unused imports
  • Duplicate logic: 2+ functions doing the same thing with minor variations
  • Premature abstraction: a base class / generic with one concrete subclass / instance
  • Leaky helper: a util that exposes implementation details its only caller could inline
  • File-over-500: split by cohesion (related functions stay together; orthogonal concerns split out)

Step 3: Apply Rule of 500

If a single file exceeds 500 LOC:

  1. Identify cohesion clusters within the file
  2. Split into 2-3 files of <500 LOC each
  3. Move tests with their code
  4. Verify imports compile

Step 4: Behavior-preservation gate

After every change:

  • Tests still pass
  • No public API change (or if there is one, it's marked breaking)
  • Diff is reviewable in <10 minutes

If the diff exceeds 500 LOC, you've gone too far — split the simplification into multiple PRs.

Read the full file on GitHub · 97 lines

Files

What ships with it

2 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.

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. 2d ago First seen · 97 lines · 88 tokens per session scan A e1ce037403d7

Subscribe to this mod's changes

code-simplification is a skill published in the GitHub repository momentmaker/kaijutsu (3 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 88 tokens to every session and 1,081 once invoked, about $0.0004 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 2026-08-31.

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