better-simplicity

better-simplicity is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from NicolasYusim/better-codebase. It costs 80 tokens per session (1,086 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A review guide for finding software complexity that is not needed for the stated requirements.

In plain words
What is it for?
Challenging refactoring proposals and simplifying designs that violate KISS, meaning keep it simple, or YAGNI, meaning do not build unneeded features.
Why use it?
It helps prevent extra layers, abstractions, configuration, and generality from making code harder to understand and maintain.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Part of the better-codebase plugin — 8 skills shipped together

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/nicolasyusim/better-codebase/better-simplicity
Any agent
npx skills add NicolasYusim/better-codebase --skill better-simplicity
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/NicolasYusim/better-codebase

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install better-codebase, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 8 skills.

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 better-simplicity

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/nicolasyusim/better-codebase/better-simplicity.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/nicolasyusim/better-codebase/better-simplicity)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/nicolasyusim/better-codebase/better-simplicity"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/nicolasyusim/better-codebase/better-simplicity.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 80 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,086 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 $0.00080 $0.01086
Opus 5 $0.00040 $0.00543
Sonnet 5 $0.00016 $0.00217
Haiku 4.5 $0.00008 $0.00109

Measured 3d ago against content hash bafe3074bcbf, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

better-simplicity 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 3d 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/better-simplicity/SKILL.md · 111 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 111 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Make the solution no more complex than the problem

Reduce the number of concepts a maintainer must understand while preserving real boundaries and intended behavior. Prefer boring, direct code when it expresses the domain accurately.

Own unnecessary complexity

Own complexity that exists without a demonstrated requirement, including unnecessary layers, indirection, generality, configuration, extensibility, and pattern machinery.

Do not own a valid boundary merely because it has multiple files. Ask better-architecture whether the boundary protects dependency direction, better-duplication whether an abstraction represents shared knowledge, and better-maintainability whether local code is hard to follow.

When orchestrated by better-codebase, act last and challenge every proposed change as well as the existing implementation.

Review workflow

1. Establish the real requirements

Identify current implementations, callers, variation points, runtime modes, extension contracts, and documented near-term constraints. Distinguish committed requirements from hypothetical future flexibility.

Do not treat might need, could support, or a generic type parameter as evidence of a requirement.

2. Count concepts and indirection

Trace a representative change or runtime path. Look for:

  • interfaces with one implementation and no boundary rationale;
  • factories that only call one constructor;
  • wrappers that preserve the same API without adding policy or isolation;
  • generic frameworks used by one concrete case;
  • configuration values that never vary in supported deployments;
  • strategy, visitor, builder, mediator, or event machinery without demonstrated variation;
  • helper layers that make control flow harder to follow;
  • data converted through multiple equivalent representations;
  • extension points that make invalid states or combinations possible;
  • custom utilities already provided clearly by the language or framework;
  • defensive flexibility that has no owner, test, or removal condition.

Read the full file on GitHub · 111 lines

Files

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.

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. 3d ago First seen · 111 lines · 80 tokens per session scan A bafe3074bcbf

Subscribe to this mod's changes

better-simplicity is a skill published in the GitHub repository NicolasYusim/better-codebase (1 stars, last pushed 25d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 80 tokens to every session and 1,086 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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