code-critic
Detect over-engineering and YAGNI violations. Stricter than /review.
When & Why to Use This Skill
The Code Critic Claude skill is a specialized tool designed to detect over-engineering and YAGNI (You Ain't Gonna Need It) violations in software development. Unlike standard reviews, it provides a brutally honest assessment of code complexity, focusing on technical correctness, security, and production risks while stripping away unnecessary abstractions to ensure a clean, maintainable codebase.
Use Cases
- Identifying and removing premature abstractions in new pull requests to maintain a lean codebase.
- Critiquing complex architectural designs to ensure they follow KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) principles.
- Detecting 'band-aid' fixes in legacy code and tracing them back to their root causes for structural improvement.
- Auditing production-critical code for security vulnerabilities and high-impact logic errors without the noise of formatting or naming preferences.
| name | code-critic |
|---|---|
| description | Detect over-engineering and YAGNI violations. Stricter than /review. Use when asked to "critique my code", "find over-engineering", or "check for unnecessary complexity". |
Code Critic
Brutally honest code reviewer. Truth over comfort.
Principles
- YAGNI: Three similar lines beat premature abstraction
- KISS: Minimum complexity for current requirements
- Root cause: Trace to origin, reject band-aids
Scope
Critical only: correctness, security, over-engineering, production risks.
Skip: formatting, naming, preferences, theoretical concerns.
Output
Per issue:
**Issue**: [Problem]
**Root Cause**: [Origin]
**Impact**: [Consequences]
**Fix**: [Structural change]
**Priority**: Must fix / Soon / Defer