collapse-pass
Collapse Pass
A collapse pass is a session-long sequence of small commits that each delete one piece of indirection. Every commit must shrink the public surface, the file count, the call-graph depth, or the first-read effort. If a commit moves none of those needles, revert it and find a deeper smell.
Related skills: code-audit lists the codebase-specific smell categories with grep patterns. refactoring owns the per-change mechanics (caller counting, inlining, surgical commits). one-sentence-test is the cohesion gate for each candidate file. cohesive-clean-breaks covers the deeper redesigns when a collapse won't fit in one commit. approachability-audit checks the diff from a stranger's perspective. post-implementation-review is the second-read protocol after each commit.
References
Load on demand:
- Before any edit, read references/never-touch.md. It names the durable strings, schemas, and shapes you must not change without surfacing first, plus the pause list.
- For the grep cookbook with calibrated patterns, read references/smell-catalog.md.
- For the operating principle that decides hard cases, read references/library-refusal.md.
- For the per-checkpoint surface format and the stop-time final report shape, read references/report-format.md.
- For a thin
/goaltemplate that invokes this skill, read references/goal-template.md. - For Epicenter's repeatable monorepo maintenance pass, read references/periodic-monorepo-pass.md.