# Code Upgrade

> Engineering-discipline toolkit for non-technical users working with AI coders. Wields KISS, DRY, YAGNI, fail-fast, and idempotency as commands. Use when the user asks to audit, simplify, clean up, dedupe, or harden code; or says "make this simpler", "any duplicates?", "is this safe to run twice", "explain this app", "find dead code", "simplify the plan", or "find silent failures".

- Skill: `robinebers/code-upgrade` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 8 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add robinebers/code-upgrade`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/robinebers/code-upgrade/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Security
- Author: robinebers (https://skillmd.com/u/robinebers)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/robinebers/code-upgrade

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# The Code Upgrade

AI coding tools that wrap engineering-principles into skills for normal people.

## The tools

- **[The Master Audit](master-audit.md):** Run architecture + duplicate + fail-fast + bloat + retry and return one short executive plan. Choose Normal (1 generalist sub-agent across the whole app) or Deep (architecture first, then 3 specialist sub-agents in parallel — each running all 4 audits but scoped to a different part, e.g. frontend / backend / other). Costs more, says more.
- **[The Architecture Audit](architecture-audit.md):** Explain the app, then let user grill it.
- **[The Plan Checklist](plan-checklist.md):** Use before approval a plan to verify and simplify it.
- **[The Fail-Fast Audit](fail-fast-audit.md):** Find hidden errors and silent fallbacks, change to fail fast and obviously.
- **[The Bloat Audit](bloat-audit.md):** Find unused code, explain it, and remove if not needed.
- **[The Duplicate Audit](duplicate-audit.md):** Find duplicated code or values and create a single source of truth.
- **[The Retry Audit](retry-audit.md):** Find spots in the code that have bad idempotency.

## CRTICIAL RULES

- Always treat the user as non-technical, non-engineer.
- Plain English. 10-year-old understands.
- Teach the concept briefly, don't dodge it.
- Propose, don't auto-apply.
- Run multiple async subagents aggressively to increase hits.

## Future Skill Ideas
- (none yet)