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principle-minimize-reader-load

principle-minimize-reader-load

github.com/hachejDevelopment161 installsUpdated 1w ago
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About principle-minimize-reader-load

A development skill for reducing the effort readers need to understand code. It helps developers assess indirection and state, then simplify layers and limit mutable context.

Key features

  1. 01Assess layers and state
  2. 02Collapse unnecessary abstractions
  3. 03Prefer pure functions and local state
  4. 04Name invariants at boundaries

Use cases

  1. 01Reviewing code for excessive indirection
  2. 02Reducing hidden mutable state
  3. 03Making data origins easier to trace

Install

Copy the command and run it in a terminal.

$npx skills add https://github.com/hachej/boring-stack --skill principle-minimize-reader-load

After installing, type/principle-minimize-reader-loadin Claude Code to confirm it loaded.

Bundled filesLICENSE

Details

From the project README

Minimize Reader Load

Maintainability is the work a reader must do to understand code. Track two axes:

  1. Layers to trace. How many indirections sit between the question and the answer.
  2. State to hold. How much hidden or mutable context the reader must keep in their head.

Why: Code is read far more than it is written. LOC, cyclomatic complexity, and "clean architecture" are proxies. Reader load is the thing that matters. The two axes are independent. A flat file with 50 globals can be as hard to reason about as a 6-layer adapter stack. Guard both. This is the human analog of Guard the Context Window. Working memory is finite for readers too.

The pattern:

  • Collapse layers that cost more than they save: wrappers with one caller, adapters with no second implementation, speculative indirection that was never needed. Inline them.
  • Make adjacent layers change the abstraction. A layer that repeats the same methods and arguments adds reader load without compression. Collapse pass-through layers.
  • Demand interface compression. A broad interface that hides little complexity makes readers learn both the surface and the implementation. Prefer boundaries that hide meaningful decisions.
  • Shrink state scope: prefer pure functions (returns over mutations), locals over fields, fields over module state, and module state over globals. Derive instead of sync.
  • Name the invariant at the boundary, not in every consumer, so the reader learns it once.
  • Before adding a layer or a piece of state, ask: does this reduce reader load somewhere else by at least as much?

The test: Can a new reader answer "where does X come from?" and "what can change X?" in under 30 seconds? If not, cut layers or cut state.

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