Routine Dead Code

Routine: Dead-Code Removal

Delete code that provably cannot run, and only that.

Routine ground rules

• A user request to run this routine authorizes the full cycle: plan, fix, verify, then invoke $ship (Codex) or /ship (Claude) directly in the same run. Honor explicit user limits such as audit-only or no-ship.
• Keep a concise execution plan in the conversation and update it as findings are confirmed. Continue into implementation without a planning approval pause. Do not create or file a .pm milestone/task as a prerequisite or substitute for fixing; use the board only if the user requests it.
• After the verification phase, follow the shipping phase below without asking the user to invoke ship separately. Preserve the ship skill's branch, conflict-resolution, and safety rules.
• Fix everything you find directly in the working tree. If a fix can't be finished safely in this run, revert only your partial work for that fix and list it under Deferred in the report — never leave the tree half-refactored.
• Scope: parse $ARGUMENTS per Phase 1 — an optional path/module scope or skill-specific target. No argument = the skill's stated default (usually the whole repo via parallel agents per module: lego/types, lego/operator, lego/backend, lego/cli, dashboard).
• False-positive discipline: if a finding is intentional, load-bearing, or ambiguous, skip it with a one-line reason — don't argue it into a change.
• Every change must pass the verification gates for the modules it touched before being reported as done: operator make test + make lint (from lego/operator/), cd lego/backend && go test ./..., cd lego/cli && go test ./..., dashboard yarn test + typecheck.
• Run npx prettier@3.4.2 --write on any markdown touched.
• Before shipping, summarize results in commentary using: Fixed (file:line + one-line rationale) / Deferred (item + why) / Skipped (finding + reason) / Gates (commands run + outcomes).

Phase 1 — Scope

Parse $ARGUMENTS: go | dashboard | a path. Empty = both sides.

Phase 2 — Run the analyzers

• Go — exactly what CI runs: deadcode (pinned in lego/operator/Makefile) with -tags=e2e -test -filter='^github.com/bex-co/bex/lego/' ./backend/... ./operator/... ./cli/.... Easiest: cd lego/operator && make lint and capture the deadcode section, or invoke lego/operator/bin/deadcode with those flags for a raw list.
• Dashboard — cd dashboard && yarn lint:unused (knip; config in dashboard/knip.jsonc).

Phase 3 — Triage every hit

Before deleting anything:

• Public API surface, CRD types, generated code (zz_generated*, codegen outputs), and entry points → skip.
• Helpers used only by the env-gated t.Skip tests (envtest/e2e/live guards — there are ~87 of them) are NOT dead; check the skipped tests before believing the tool.
• Grep the symbol repo-wide, including cross-language edges the analyzers can't see: dashboard clients, scripts/, workflow YAML, docs examples.

Phase 4 — Delete

Remove confirmed-dead symbols and files together with their now-orphaned tests and imports. Re-run both analyzers; repeat until the output is clean or every remaining hit has a one-line skip reason.

Phase 5 — Verify and report

Run gates for touched modules (deadcode runs inside operator make lint); dashboard also needs a clean yarn lint:unused. Report per the standard format.

Final phase — Ship

After all required gates pass, read and execute the ship skill for the routine's completed changes. Stage only intended changes from this run; preserve unrelated work. Do not end at a plan, findings report, milestone, or request for shipping approval. If there are no changes, report that outcome without creating an empty commit. If a required gate remains blocked or fails after reasonable repairs, report the exact blocker and do not ship unverified changes.

Once the push succeeds, report the shipped HEAD SHA and subject per the ship skill and stop; do not monitor CI or deployment.