simplify

name	simplify
description	Use after tests pass and before code review - a portable quality pass that simplifies recently changed code while preserving behavior

simplify

A portable quality pass. Refine recently modified code for clarity, consistency, and maintainability without changing behavior. Quality only — this does not hunt for bugs (that is the review step).

Adapted from the code-simplifier agent; works on any harness.

Principles

1. Preserve functionality — change how the code does it, never what it does. All outputs and behaviors stay identical.
2. Apply project standards — read the project's context file (CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md / GEMINI.md) and follow its conventions, instead of imposing any fixed style.
3. Enhance clarity — reduce unnecessary nesting and complexity, remove redundant code and dead abstractions, improve names, consolidate related logic, drop comments that merely restate the code. Avoid nested ternaries — prefer if/else or switch. Explicit beats clever.
4. Maintain balance — do not over-simplify in ways that hurt readability, debuggability, or extension. Do not collapse separate concerns into one unit. Never trade readability for fewer lines.
5. Focus scope — only code touched in the current task, unless told to widen.

Process

1. Identify the code changed in this task.
2. Apply the refinements above.
3. Re-run the tests — they MUST stay green. If any fail, you changed behavior; revert that refinement.
4. Hand the cleaned diff to the review step.