Deadeye Debt

Deadeye Debt

Coder mode marks deliberate simplifications with a pinned grammar — the literal ceiling: and upgrade: keywords are required so this ledger can parse them reliably:

# deadeye: <shortcut>. ceiling: <limit>. upgrade: <trigger>.

e.g. # deadeye: global lock. ceiling: single-writer throughput. upgrade: per-account locks when contention shows.

This skill collects them into a ledger. Older freeform markers (no ceiling:/upgrade: keywords) still count — parse them best-effort.

How

Run:

grep -rnE '(#|//|/\*|<!--) ?deadeye:' . \
  --exclude-dir=node_modules --exclude-dir=.git \
  --exclude-dir=dist --exclude-dir=build --exclude-dir=vendor

Filter before counting — three kinds of hit are not markers, verify each one before it lands in the ledger:

1. This skill's own file (skills/deadeye-debt/SKILL.md) — its own grammar example matches its own grep.
2. A line quoting the grammar template verbatim, with the literal placeholders <shortcut>, <limit>, or <trigger> still in it — docs and other skills quote the sentence to explain the convention; a real marker always has those filled in with actual text, never the bracketed words themselves.
3. Non-code brand/marketing copy (an SVG comment, a README aside) that happens to start with "deadeye:" but isn't a shortcut-marker comment at all — read the hit, don't just count it.

Only what survives that filter is a real marker.

Ledger format

One row per marker:

<file>:<line> — <what was simplified>. ceiling: <limit>. upgrade: <trigger>.

A marker whose comment names no upgrade condition gets tagged no-trigger — those are the ones most likely to rot.

For ownership questions, suggest git blame -L<line>,<line> <file>.

More than ~30 markers: group rows by directory and report per-group counts plus the worst offenders, still ending with the exact total.

End with: <N> markers, <M> with no trigger. — or, if the grep finds nothing: No deadeye: debt. Clean ledger.

Boundaries

• Report only. Write a DEADEYE-DEBT.md file only if explicitly asked.
• Do not editorialize about whether a shortcut was justified — the ledger's job is visibility, not judgment.