How do I install the Reuse First skill?

Run npx skillmds@latest add bhagyamudgal/reuse-first in your terminal (requires Node.js), paste this page's agent-chat prompt into Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-connected agent, or download the SKILL.md file and copy it into your agent's skills directory.

Is Reuse First safe to use?

This skill has not completed SkillMD's automated safety review yet. SkillMD never runs a skill's scripts for you; review the SKILL.md before installing.

Which AI agents work with Reuse First?

This skill is tagged as working with Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex. SKILL.md is an open format, so most agents that read a skills directory can load it too.

Is Reuse First free to use?

Yes. Installing skills from SkillMD is free, and the skill stays under its author's original license.

Who published Reuse First?

bhagyamudgal (@bhagyamudgal) published this skill. Their other Agent Skills are listed on their SkillMD profile.

Reuse First by bhagyamudgal — Agent Skill

Name: Reuse First
Author: bhagyamudgal

Reuse First

Search before you write, sweep before you finish. Use BEFORE creating any utility, type, schema, component, hook, constant, module, or package; BEFORE hardcoding a literal that may be an exported constant; when about to copy-paste similar code; and as a completion gate over every file the task touched, not just the diff.

bhagyamudgal cde81e7 3 files · 11.2 KB Updated Sep 17, 2026

File contents

Reuse first

Every duplicate is a future divergence. A bug fixed in one copy stays broken in the other.

Greenfield with no codebase to search yet. Run project-discovery first, then come back here.

3-layer search

Exact name often misses it, so search in three passes:

Name layer: grep -r "functionName", exact + camelCase + snake_case variants
Behavior layer: grep for what it does, format.*date, validate.*email, parse.*currency
Reference layer: find a feature that uses the thing you are looking for. Open it, follow its imports

You are done when you have printed what each layer returned. Write these three lines before you write anything:

Name layer:      <variants grepped> -> <hits, or none>
Behavior layer:  <3+ keywords> -> <hits, or none>
Reference layer: <feature file opened> -> <imports followed>

Those three lines are the artifact. Creating the file without them is the failure this skill exists to prevent, and it stays invisible afterward. The new code compiles, passes review, and ships because nothing downstream re-asks the question. If you already wrote the artifact, run the search anyway and delete what it finds a home for. Do not rationalise the copy.

One search per artifact, not per batch. Creating six modules in one sitting is six searches. Batching them into one glance is how a shared constant gets missed. The search that would have found it was never phrased with its keywords.

If you cannot name three behavior keywords for the thing you are about to write, you do not understand it well enough to search for it. That is the finding, not the search.

What to do with what you find

Load ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/artifact-guide.md now. Reach its acceptable-duplication section only after all three layers have returned.

Signs you are about to fork

Naming with a suffix: formatDate2, userServiceV2, validateInputNew, parseFooHelper
Variant naming for similar behavior: formatPrice + formatCurrency + priceFormatter coexisting, a divergence in progress
Inline reimplementation of something that "feels like it should exist": that feeling is usually correct
A new file in utils/ or lib/ under 30 lines likely belongs in an existing file
A new type alias that mirrors a Zod schema's inferred type. Use z.infer instead
Copy-pasted boilerplate across files like auth checks, error mapping, and response shaping. Extract it to a shared helper
You define a new constant inline when a similarly named one already lives in constants/

Sweep mode: before claiming the task done

The pre-creation search only sees what you were about to write. Load ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/sweep-mode.md now and run the full sweep it describes before claiming the task done.

---name: reuse-firstdescription: Search before you write, sweep before you finish. Use BEFORE creating any utility, type, schema, component, hook, constant, module, or package; BEFORE hardcoding a literal that may be an exported constant; when about to copy-paste similar code; and as a completion gate over every file the task touched, not just the diff.---# Reuse firstEvery duplicate is a future divergence. A bug fixed in one copy stays broken in the other.Greenfield with no codebase to search yet. Run project-discovery first, then come back here.## 3-layer searchExact name often misses it, so search in three passes:1. **Name layer**: `grep -r "functionName"`, exact + camelCase + snake_case variants2. **Behavior layer**: grep for what it does, `format.*date`, `validate.*email`, `parse.*currency`3. **Reference layer**: find a feature that uses the thing you are looking for. Open it, follow its importsYou are done when you have printed what each layer returned. Write these three lines before you write anything:```textName layer: <variants grepped> -> <hits, or none>Behavior layer: <3+ keywords> -> <hits, or none>Reference layer: <feature file opened> -> <imports followed>```Those three lines are the artifact. Creating the file without them is the failure this skill exists to prevent, and it stays invisible afterward. The new code compiles, passes review, and ships because nothing downstream re-asks the question. If you already wrote the artifact, run the search anyway and delete what it finds a home for. Do not rationalise the copy.One search per artifact, not per batch. Creating six modules in one sitting is six searches. Batching them into one glance is how a shared constant gets missed. The search that would have found it was never phrased with its keywords.If you cannot name three behavior keywords for the thing you are about to write, you do not understand it well enough to search for it. That is the finding, not the search.## What to do with what you findLoad `${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/artifact-guide.md` now. Reach its acceptable-duplication section only after all three layers have returned.## Signs you are about to fork- Naming with a suffix: `formatDate2`, `userServiceV2`, `validateInputNew`, `parseFooHelper`- Variant naming for similar behavior: `formatPrice` + `formatCurrency` + `priceFormatter` coexisting, a divergence in progress- Inline reimplementation of something that "feels like it should exist": that feeling is usually correct- A new file in `utils/` or `lib/` under 30 lines likely belongs in an existing file- A new type alias that mirrors a Zod schema's inferred type. Use `z.infer` instead- Copy-pasted boilerplate across files like auth checks, error mapping, and response shaping. Extract it to a shared helper- You define a new constant inline when a similarly named one already lives in `constants/`## Sweep mode: before claiming the task doneThe pre-creation search only sees what you were about to write. Load `${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/sweep-mode.md` now and run the full sweep it describes before claiming the task done.

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