vibe-code-gardener

Vibe Code Gardener (2026 Edition)

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Description

Detects and purges AI-generated code quality issues — AI slop, code bloat, context drift, duplicated logic, dead code, misaligned patterns, and architectural decay in projects that have been heavily vibe-coded.

Trigger Conditions

• Codebase has grown out of control after many AI-assisted coding sessions.
• Duplication, inconsistent patterns, or unexplained abstractions detected.
• Features are getting harder to add or understand.
• Tests are brittle or missing entirely.
• The codebase has "AI smell" — overly verbose comments, unnecessary defensive code, duplicate utilities.

AI Slop Detection Heuristics (2026)

These are the most common AI-generated code quality issues to look for:

1. The "Just In Case" Over-Engineering

AI models often add features or abstractions "for extensibility" that are never needed:

// 🔴 AI SLOP: Factory pattern for something that will never change
const createUserRepository = (type: 'postgres' | 'mysql' | 'sqlite') => {
  if (type === 'postgres') return new PostgresUserRepo();
  // ...never switches in practice
};

// ✅ CLEAN: Just use the implementation
const userRepo = new PostgresUserRepo();

2. The "Belt and Suspenders" Duplicate Guards

AI adds null checks and validations at every layer unnecessarily:

// 🔴 AI SLOP: Triple-validated (already validated by Zod + DB schema + here)
if (!user || !user.id || user.id === undefined || user.id === null || typeof user.id !== 'string') { ... }

// ✅ CLEAN: Trust your types
if (!user.id) { ... }

3. The "Graveyard of Dead Utilities"

AI-generated helper files with functions that are defined but never used:

• Search for exported functions with 0 usages: grep -r "export function" --include="*.ts" | while read...
• Remove entire files of dead utilities.

4. Context Drift — Style Inconsistency

Different sessions produce different coding styles in the same codebase:

• Some files use async/await, others use .then() chains.
• Some use const arrow functions, others use function declarations.
• Mixed naming: userId, user_id, UserID in the same project.
• Fix: Run a style unification pass with Prettier + ESLint rules.