# Trim Comments

> Use when existing source comments or docstrings are bloated, dense, repetitive, AI slop, or should be trimmed, debloated, and kept light.

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

---



# `/lean:trim-comments`

Judge every comment and docstring in the target files against
`../../references/comment-policy.md`, then delete or rewrite the ones
that fail. Edits in place and prints a diff. Never commits, never
pushes, never requires a clean tree.

## Confirm before the first edit

This skill deletes code the user did not ask you to touch, and it can
be routed to from a passing remark about comments. Present the
classification and get an explicit yes through `AskUserQuestion`
before any `Edit`.

No exceptions: not for a single comment, not for a file the user just
named, not under `--all`. `--diff-only` is the way to skip the edit,
not the confirmation.

## `$ARGUMENTS`

- `paths/globs` — files to audit, resolved through `git ls-files --
  <glob>` when tracked, else as literal paths.
- `--staged` — audit what is staged rather than the branch diff.
- `--all` — audit every tracked file. Expect a large diff; say so
  before confirming.
- `--diff-only` — classify and show what would change, edit nothing.

With no paths, the target set is the files this branch changed.

## Steps

1. **Resolve targets.** With paths, expand them. With `--all`, take
   `git ls-files`. With `--staged`, take the staged names:

   ```console
   $ git diff --name-only --cached --diff-filter=d
   ```

   Otherwise find the trunk ref (`git rev-parse --abbrev-ref
   origin/HEAD`, falling back to the repo's default branch) and take
   its merge base:

   ```console
   $ git merge-base HEAD origin/HEAD
   ```

   Then take the names changed since it:

   ```console
   $ git diff --name-only --diff-filter=d <merge-base>
   ```

   Keep source files; drop lockfiles, generated output, and vendored
   trees. Reject an empty target set with a clear message rather than
   widening the scope on your own.

2. **Load the policy and voice.** Read
   `../../references/comment-policy.md`, then `./AGENTS.md` and
   `./CLAUDE.md`. Where the host project sets its own comment rules,
   those govern.

3. **Classify.** Every comment and docstring in range gets one verdict
   — keep, rewrite, or delete — and a failing gate by name for
   anything not kept. A verdict you cannot attach to a gate is a keep.

   Read the surrounding code before judging. A comment that looks like
   narration but pins an invariant is a keep, and the loss gate is
   what protects it.

4. **Preview and confirm.** Show each rewrite as old and new text, and
   each deletion with the code it sat above, grouped by file. Confirm
   through `AskUserQuestion`. Skip only for `--diff-only`.

5. **Apply.** Use `Edit`. Rewrites are concrete and shorter than what
   they replace. Do not touch the code itself; a comment that is wrong
   because the code is wrong is a finding to report, not to fix here.

6. **Diff.** Print `git diff -- <targets>`.

7. **Report and hand off.** Give the counts kept, rewritten, and
   deleted, and name anything skipped and why. Then offer next steps
   through `AskUserQuestion`: commit with `/commit`, tighten the prose
   too with `/lean:tighten`, or discard — review the printed diff
   first, since `git checkout -- <file>` resets the whole file to HEAD
   and drops any other uncommitted work in it.

## What this does not do

- Commit or push — that is `/commit`.
- Edit code, only its comments.
- Rewrite prose files — that is `/lean:tighten`.
- Rewrite history — that is `/pr:deslop`.
- Add missing comments. Absence is not a finding here.