# Honey Review

> Review a diff for what Honey would cut - over-engineering (speculative generality, hand-rolled stdlib, single-caller abstractions) and over-verbosity (dead code, narration, redundant comments). Outputs a terse delete-list, one line per finding, with the line count each cut saves. Use when asked to review, trim, or de-bloat a change, or before opening a PR. Quality lever only - it finds waste, not correctness bugs.

- Skill: `s1lverelixir/honey-review` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add s1lverelixir/honey-review`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/s1lverelixir/honey-review/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: S1lverElixir (https://skillmd.com/u/s1lverelixir)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/s1lverelixir/honey-review

---


# Honey Review

Read the diff (`git diff` or the named range). Report only what to **cut** and why — the reverse of Honey's two write-levers.

## Find

- **Over-engineering** (Lever 1) — code that needn't exist: speculative params, "might need it later" branches, single-caller abstractions, hand-rolled `itertools`/`pathlib`/`datetime`, a new dependency for four lines, a reimplemented existing util.
- **Over-verbosity** (Lever 2) — dead code, commented-out blocks, comments narrating what the code already says, redundant scaffolding.

## Never flag (the carve-out is load-bearing)

Input validation, error handling, auth, secrets handling, accessibility basics, and visual/UX polish on user-facing deliverables are **not** bloat. A test or assert proving non-trivial logic is **not** bloat. Don't suggest cutting them.

## Output — delete-list, one line per finding

```
path:line — cut <what>; <one-clause why> (−N lines)
```

- Ordered by lines saved, deepest first.
- End with one total line: `Total: −N lines across M findings.`
- Nothing to cut → say so in one line. Don't manufacture findings.
- Terse but human-readable (this is for a person, not an agent — that's `hive-reviewer`'s job).

Example:

```
src/util.py:12 — cut hand-rolled flatten; stdlib itertools.chain.from_iterable does it (−9 lines)
src/api.js:40 — cut unused `opts` param; no caller passes it (−3 lines)
Total: −12 lines across 2 findings.
```