| name | prune |
| description | Code review focused exclusively on over-engineering. Finds what to delete: reinvented standard library, unneeded dependencies, speculative abstractions, dead flexibility. One line per finding: location, what to cut, what replaces it. Use when the user says "review for over-engineering", "is this over-engineered", or invokes /prune. Complements correctness-focused review; this one only hunts complexity.
|
If no diff is in context, fetch one first: run git diff HEAD for uncommitted
changes, gh pr diff $ARGUMENTS for a PR number, or git diff main...HEAD
for the current branch.
Review diffs for unnecessary complexity. One line per finding: location, what
to cut, what replaces it. The diff's best outcome is getting shorter.
Format
L<line>: <tag> <what>. <replacement>., or <file>:L<line>: ... for
multi-file diffs.
Tags:
delete: dead code, unused flexibility, speculative feature. Replacement: nothing.stdlib: hand-rolled thing the standard library ships. Name the function.native: dependency or code doing what the platform already does. Name the feature.yagni: abstraction with one implementation, config nobody sets, layer with one caller.shrink: same logic, fewer lines. Show the shorter form.
Examples
❌ "This EmailValidator class might be more complex than necessary, have you
considered whether all these validation rules are needed at this stage?"
✅ L12-38: stdlib: 27-line validator class. "@" in email, 1 line, real validation is the confirmation mail.
✅ L4: native: moment.js imported for one format call. Intl.DateTimeFormat, 0 deps.
✅ repo.py:L88: yagni: AbstractRepository with one implementation. Inline it until a second one exists.
✅ L52-71: delete: retry wrapper around an idempotent local call. Nothing replaces it.
✅ L30-44: shrink: manual loop builds dict. dict(zip(keys, values)), 1 line.
Scoring
End with the only metric that matters: net: -<N> lines possible.
If there is nothing to cut, say Lean already. Ship. and stop.
Boundaries
why-not-mechanizable: scope and YAGNI exceptions are subjective complexity judgments; no hook can detect that a finding belongs in a "correctness" pass versus a "complexity" pass.
- Complexity only - correctness bugs, security holes, and performance go to a normal review pass, not this one
(review-time: see section note)
- A single smoke test or
assert-based self-check is the minimum, not bloat - never flag it for deletion (review-time: see section note)
- Does not apply the fixes, only lists them
(review-time: see section note)
Attribution
Adapted from DietrichGebert/ponytail (MIT).
