# Simplify Code > Simplify one user-selected existing-code target without changing accepted behavior. Use only when explicitly selected; exclude new behavior, bug fixes, broad discovery, and unsettled interface or ownership decisions. - Skill: `stevennitesh/simplify-code` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add stevennitesh/simplify-code` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/stevennitesh/simplify-code/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Product & Planning - Author: stevennitesh (https://skillmd.com/u/stevennitesh) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/stevennitesh/simplify-code --- # Simplify Code Remove concrete complexity from one named target without changing accepted behavior. If no worthwhile safe reduction exists, leave the code unchanged and say why. Apply the repository instructions and engineering contract. The invocation authorizes local source changes inside the target and the code they directly displace. It does not authorize staging, commit, external mutation, or unrelated cleanup. ## 1. Understand Accept a target named by the user or selected in an Audit Codebase pickup. If the target is missing, too broad, requires new behavior or bug repair, or depends on an unsettled interface or ownership decision, return the mismatch without changing code. Read the target and its real callers. Name the accepted behavior and the concrete complexity to remove. Reuse an Audit pickup's current evidence and refresh only facts that may have changed. ## 2. Choose Choose one coherent reduction. Prefer deletion, reuse of an existing owner or native capability, collapsing an unearned layer, then simpler control flow or state. Pick the clearest total design, not the fewest lines. A reduction must remove maintenance work rather than move it into callers, configuration, tests, or another wrapper. Return unchanged only when the current owner and callers expose no credible cut that preserves behavior, removes rather than moves complexity, and can be proved with available evidence. ## 3. Simplify Apply the reduction completely. Migrate affected callers and remove displaced code, configuration, tests, or documentation. ## 4. Prove and return Run the nearest useful check through the real caller or artifact. Use a before-and-after comparison only when the behavior-preservation claim needs it. Broaden proof only for shared impact, repository policy, or a concrete risk. Inspect the reduction's diff. Confirm that accepted behavior remains and the named complexity is gone rather than relocated. For an explicitly requested repeated pass, run Choose, Simplify, and Prove serially inside the same target. Continue only after the current reduction passes both checks. Stop when no worthwhile cut remains, the user's stated limit is reached, or proof or scope fails. Before returning, inspect the complete invocation diff and confirm unrelated work is untouched. If proof fails, remove only the current reduction's changes when they can be isolated safely. If they cannot, preserve the exact state and report it. Return the reductions and proof, the concrete reason the code stayed unchanged, or a failed check with the exact current state and recovery needed. A failed check is not completion. Start no successor. Complete when every applied reduction removes rather than moves complexity, accepted behavior remains, and relevant proof passes, or when current evidence supports no worthwhile safe reduction in the selected target.