Intent-Based Deduplication

Deduplicate by intent, not by appearance. Similar text with different reasons to change should stay separate.

Workflow

1. Identify the duplicated code and every caller.

2. Name the business or technical intent of each copy.

3. Compare future change reasons, owners, invariants, and release cadence.

4. Deduplicate only when the shared abstraction can be named honestly and will change for one reason.

5. If intent differs, keep duplication or extract smaller mechanical helpers that do not pretend to be domain concepts.

Decision Matrix

• Same text, same intent: merge.