Simplify And Harden

A post-completion self-review hook that runs three focused passes on your code before you signal done: simplify (kill dead code, tighten naming, flatten control flow), harden (validate inputs, check error paths, audit security assumptions), and add micro-docs for non-obvious decisions. It only touches what you changed in the current task and stays within a 20% diff budget. The philosophy is sound: exploit peak context before the agent forgets why it made those choices. Refactors require explicit approval via interactive prompts. Best paired with an independent review pass afterward, since self-review has limits. If your agent tends to leave scaffolding behind or skip input validation, this catches it while the context is still warm.

skills.sh installs: 540
GitHub stars: 331
last updated: Aug 21, 2026

View on GitHub

Install

$ npx -y skills add pskoett/pskoett-ai-skills --skill simplify-and-harden --agent claude-code

Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.

Files

Agent Skill: Simplify & Harden

Install

gh skill install pskoett/pskoett-skills simplify-and-harden

For CI-only execution, use:

gh skill install pskoett/pskoett-skills simplify-and-harden-ci

Fallback using the Agent Skills CLI:

npx skills add pskoett/pskoett-skills/skills/simplify-and-harden
npx skills add pskoett/pskoett-skills/skills/simplify-and-harden-ci

Metadata

Field	Value
Skill ID	`simplify-and-harden`
Version	0.1.0
Trigger	Post-completion hook
Author	Peter Skøtt Pedersen
Category	Code Quality / Security
Priority	Recommended

Rationale and Philosophy

When a coding agent completes a task, it holds peak contextual understanding of the problem, the solution, and the tradeoffs it made along the way. This context degrades immediately -- the next task wipes the slate. Simplify & Harden exploits that peak context window to perform two focused review passes before the agent moves on.

SKILL.md on GitHub