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BuddhiliveBuddhilive/buddhi-cli/.agents/skills/ratchet-files/SKILL.md

ratchet-files

Skill1 starsChanged 16 days agoMITView on GitHub

Ratchet source file size so every file stays small enough for an agent to read whole: find every file over a token budget, split oversized files by concept, and set up the pre-commit ratchet that stops them from growing. Use when a commit is blocked because a file is over the size budget, when asked to find or split oversized/long/god files, when a file you need to change is too large to read in one pass, or when asked to add a file-size limit or hook to a repository.

4 other projects use a version of this, 4 of them edited.

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The file

We split this skill into the rules it gives an agent

4 rules. 2 are common, 0 are distinctive, and 2 are very specific to this project.

  • 2

    Common

    Most of the 4 edited versions we read keep these.

  • 0

    Distinctive

    This author's own choices. Worth a look.

  • 2

    Very specific

    Tied to their project's names, files or tools. Probably skip.

  • Common
  • Distinctive
  • Very specific
  1. Very specific:

    Run the script with --all from the repository root, passing the repository's --max-tokens if its hook sets one.

    line 16
  2. Common:

    Never install the hook without the user's explicit yes, even when they asked to set up the repository.

    line 46
  3. Very specific:

    Run buddhi scripts check-file-size --all from the repository root.

    line 50
  4. Common:

    Ask once, with everything the user is agreeing to: how many files the hook would freeze and which are largest, leaving out generated or …

    line 51

“Common” is measured: kept by at least 6 in 10 of the 4 edited versions of this file we could read. “Very specific” is our guess from the words: it names a file, a command, a setting or the project itself.

Keep what fits and drop the rest. Your version, ready for your agents.
Files
SKILL.md

Ratchet Files

A source file is over budget when it is past what an agent can read in one pass (8,000 tokens, counted as bytes / 4, unless the repository sets another). [buddhi scripts check-file-size](scripts/buddhi scripts check-file-size) owns what counts as source, the budget, the ratchet, and the split rules; run it with --help before anything else.

Splitting

  1. Run the script with --all from the repository root, passing the repository's --max-tokens if its hook sets one. Its list is the backlog.
  2. Pick the files to split: the one blocking the work in front of you, or with no blocker, the largest ones a change is about to touch.
  3. Split each one by the rules the script prints. A seam is a concept the file already owns, not a line count; when refactor-clean is installed, use it to find them.
  4. Prove the split changed no behaviour with the repository's own checks, and commit it alone, before the change that needed the room.

A file whose every split would cost more than it saves (one table or state machine that only reads whole) may opt out instead. Put @ratchet-files-ignore in a comment within its first 10 lines, in the file's own comment syntax, followed by why splitting fails:

// @ratchet-files-ignore: one opcode table; split, each half reads without the other.

The check then skips the file entirely, even as it grows, so opt out only after looking for a seam and finding none worth its cost, never to get past a refusal. Tell the user each file you opt out and why. --all counts opted-out files so they stay visible.

Done when every file you picked is under budget in its own commit, the behaviour checks pass, and --all no longer lists those files.

Setting up the ratchet

Never install the hook without the user's explicit yes, even when they asked to set up the repository. Installing it freezes every file already over budget, so audit first and leave the repository untouched while you do:

  1. Run buddhi scripts check-file-size --all from the repository root.
  2. Ask once, with everything the user is agreeing to: how many files the hook would freeze and which are largest, leaving out generated or vendored ones you will mark below (name those); the budget, 8,000 tokens unless they want another; and which pre-commit runner you will wire it into.

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