Elegant Code Review

Walk the current working diff against the elegant-code decision ladder. For each added hunk, name the rung that justifies it, flag any rung skipped, and propose concrete deletions. This is a per-change review. For whole-codebase cleanup, use /unbloat.

When To Use

• After writing or generating a change, before committing.
• When a diff feels larger than the problem it solves.
• When a new dependency appears in a lockfile or manifest.

When NOT To Use

• Whole-codebase dead-code sweeps: use /unbloat or /bloat-scan.
• Throwaway scripts where review cost is near zero.

Steps

1. Load the rubric: Skill(conserve:elegant-code).
2. Collect the diff:

• Default: git diff (unstaged) plus git diff --staged.
• --staged: staged changes only.
• --base REF: git diff REF...HEAD.

1. For each added hunk, assign the lowest ladder rung that justifies it:
2. Need-to-exist
3. Builtin / stdlib
4. Native platform
5. Installed dependency
6. A few lines A new dependency is the last resort, below rung 5. If one was added, confirm it with Skill(imbue:dependency-verification) and check whether an installed dependency already covered the need.
7. Cross-check deletability with a real tool when available, treating output as candidates only:

   command -v knip >/dev/null && knip || echo "knip absent; skipping"
   command -v vulture >/dev/null && vulture . || echo "vulture absent; skipping"

1. Apply the negligence floor before proposing any deletion. Never propose removing input validation, authorization, data-loss handling, error handling, security paths, or accessibility.
2. Check completeness, not just excess. Flag a hunk that handles only the happy path: missing edge cases (empty, None, zero, boundary), missing negative or failure paths, or an obvious performance trap (quadratic loop, N+1 query). Minimal code that omits these is unfinished, not lean.

Output

A short table, one row per reviewed hunk:

Close with a one-line verdict: minimal and complete, trim suggested, new dependency unjustified, or incomplete: add coverage. List proposed deletions, and any missing edge, negative, or performance coverage, as concrete diffs the user approves before anything changes.

Notes

• Read-only by default: propose, do not delete without approval.
• Composes leyline:additive-bias-defense for the burden-of-proof verdict on each addition.