cleanse

Scope

If the user specified files or directories, review those. If not, ask what they'd like you to review before proceeding.

Goal

Make this code trivially easy to pick up cold. Someone opening this file in six months should understand what it does in seconds. All changes should preserve the original functionality and behavior.

What to look for

Read the target code carefully, then apply these passes in order. Make changes directly — don't list suggestions.

1. Flatten control flow

Nested conditionals are the single biggest readability killer. Flatten them.

• Convert if/else chains to early returns and guard clauses. Put the bail-out condition at the top, happy path below.
• When a function has a single meaningful path wrapped in a conditional, invert the condition and return early.