Code Simplification

Overview

Simplifying means rewriting how code is expressed while every caller, test and user sees the same results: the same return values and types, the same errors, the same side effects in the same order. The work is a loop: pin down what the code does today, find what makes it hard to follow, apply one named refactoring, re-check, repeat.

"Simpler" means a reader has less to keep in their head: fewer branches per function, shallower nesting, fewer parameters, no names that only pass a value along, no code that never runs. Line count is not the measure. The deliverable is a set of small changes plus a report with numbers before and after and a list of everything that looked like a bug and was deliberately left as it was.

Instructions

1. Settle the scope and the safety net

Look these up in the repository first (package scripts, Makefile, pyproject.toml, CI workflow, CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md):

• the test, type-check and lint commands, and the lint configuration already in force
• every caller of the code in question (language server references or a text search), and whether the name is part of a public surface: exports in package.json, __all__, an HTTP route, a CLI flag
• the files in the current diff, when the request is "tidy what I just wrote"

Ask the user only what the repository cannot answer: