Demand Elegance

Demand Elegance Skill

Forces the agent to challenge its own non-trivial diff before presenting it: fewer moving parts, standard patterns over custom abstractions, boring over clever. Does NOT apply to typos, one-line fixes, or hotfixes — over-engineering trivial work is the failure mode this skill explicitly avoids.

When to Use

• A fix feels hacky, fragile, or "barely working".
• Multiple solutions exist and the tradeoffs aren't obvious.
• The diff is large and includes infrastructure the original task didn't ask for.
• Refactoring with simplification as the explicit goal.
• Self-review before presenting any non-trivial solution.
• NOT for: typos, one-line bugfixes, comment edits, formatting, production hotfires.

Prerequisites

• A working solution (or near-working) to challenge — don't run this on a blank canvas.
• The full diff visible (git diff via the powershell tool).
• Willingness to throw work away if a simpler approach exists.

How to Run

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1. Confirm the change is non-trivial. If trivial, skip — see Pitfalls.
2. Run the Elegance Check (4 questions in Procedure §1).
3. Apply the Simplicity Ladder (Procedure §2) to choose between options.
4. Self-review the diff as if it were someone else's PR.
5. If hacky, restart with the elegant approach — don't deodorize the smell.

Quick Reference

Procedure

Step 1: The Elegance Check

For non-trivial work, before presenting the diff, ask in order:

1. Is there a more elegant way?
2. Knowing everything I know now, would I build it this way?
3. Can I reduce the number of moving parts?
4. Would a senior reviewer raise an eyebrow at this?

A "yes" to any means: pause and try the simpler path.

Step 2: The Simplicity Ladder

When picking between solutions, prefer the upper rungs:

1. No code change (the bug isn't a bug, or the requirement is wrong).
2. Configuration change.
3. Small, local code change inside one function.
4. Localized refactor inside one module.
5. Cross-module change with explicit motivation.
6. New abstraction (only if 1–5 are insufficient).

If you land on rung 6, justify why 1–5 do not work in a comment or in tasks/todo.md.

Step 3: Self-Review the Diff

Run git diff via the powershell tool and read your own diff as if reviewing a stranger's PR. Identify the smelliest part — there is always one. Ask whether that smell can be eliminated, not just covered up.

Step 4: Restart If Hacky

If the diff still feels hacky after Step 3, throw it away and start over with the simpler approach. Resist the sunk-cost reflex.

A useful self-prompt: "Knowing everything I know now, implement the elegant solution."

Pitfalls

• DO NOT run this skill on trivial changes. A typo fix doesn't need an architecture review.
• DO NOT premature-abstract. Build for the requirements that exist, not the ones you imagine.
• DO NOT gold-plate. The user asked for a button fix, not a component-system redesign.
• DO NOT confuse cleverness with elegance. If you need a comment to explain what (not why) the code does, it's too clever.
• DO NOT apply during production hotfires. Stabilize first; log a tasks/lessons.md entry to revisit.
• DO NOT deodorize a smell — eliminate it. Wrapping bad code in a clean interface still leaves bad code.

Verification

• Diff size is justified by the task description in tasks/todo.md.
• No new abstractions without explicit justification.
• No new dependencies without explicit justification.
• Self-review pass completed (git diff read end-to-end).
• No tasks/lessons.md entry tagged over-engineering for this task.