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ScinoScino/fstack/skills/principle-laziness-protocol/SKILL.md

principle-laziness-protocol

Skill18 starsChanged 53 days agoMITView on GitHub

Apply when refactoring, evaluating diff size, or tempted to add abstractions, layers, or signal threading. Enforces Occam's Razor: bias toward deletion and the simplest change that solves the problem.

46 other projects use a version of this, 43 of them edited.

Adopted by

Most recently taken up by

Used with

Projects with it also use principle-explain-the-number, setup-pstack and 10 more.

Other files people use alongside this one.

Files found in the same public projects as a version of this one, more often than they turn up anywhere else. Each project counts once, large collections count for less, and this file's own repository is left out.
  • ianclearySkill

    principle-explain-the-number

    Apply before you trust, report, or act on a number you measured: a speedup, a regression, a throughput, a latency, or an eval result. Find what limits it, and rule out that it measured something other than the work you think.

    Also in 30 projects that use this

  • bnemaSkill

    setup-pstack

    Configure which Pi models pstack uses per role. Detects available provider/model specs and writes pstack's user configuration. Use for /setup-pstack, "configure pstack models", or changing pstack model choices.

    Also in 25 projects that use this

  • ianclearySkill

    poteto-help

    Guides users through pstack setup, /poteto-mode, and picking the skill, playbook, or principle for a task. Type /poteto-help with a question.

    Also in 14 projects that use this

  • eryzerzSkill

    make-bot-ui

    Use when building a custom UI (page, dashboard, buttons) that should wake a Grok Bot over a webhook, when the user must provide a webhook sender key, or when exposing that UI on Tailscale.

    Also in 19 projects that use this

  • tristanphvnSkill

    ketchup-video

    Catch the user up like /keel:ketchup, with a short silent video of slides for what happened and the waiting calls as text under it. Use for /keel:ketchup-video.

    Also in 11 projects that use this

  • drafaelSkill

    in-your-own-words

    Restate the user's goals and the problem they are trying to solve to check understanding. Manual invocation only; use when the user explicitly invokes in-your-own-words or requests this understanding check. Do not solve the task or rewrite the assistant's last answer.

    Also in 20 projects that use this

The file

We split this skill into the rules it gives an agent

7 rules. 4 are common, 3 are distinctive, and 0 are very specific to this project.

  • 4

    Common

    Most of the 46 edited versions we read keep these.

  • 3

    Distinctive

    This author's own choices. Worth a look.

  • 0

    Very specific

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

  • Common
  • Distinctive
  • Very specific
  1. Distinctive:

    Occam's Razor over premature architecture: Do not add interfaces, generic factories, or adapter layers for hypothetical future requirements.

    line 18
  2. Common:

    Prefer deletion: When asked to refactor or improve, search for removals before additions.

    line 19
  3. Common:

    Maintain a flat call hierarchy: Avoid deep call chains. If answering a question requires tracing through more than 3 files or layers, …

    line 20
  4. Common:

    Consolidate decisions: Do not repeat the same choice in several places.

    line 21
  5. Common:

    Question the threading: If a task asks you to pass a new signal through types, schemas, pipelines, or similar layers, stop and find the …

    line 23
  6. Distinctive:

    Sweat the small leaks: Remove tiny pass-throughs, representation leaks, and duplicated choices before they spread.

    line 24
  7. Distinctive:

    Prime directive: If a human developer would find the code exhausting to read, trace, or maintain, it is a bad solution.

    line 26

“Common” is measured: kept by at least 6 in 10 of the 46 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

Laziness Protocol (Occam's Razor)

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. — William of Ockham
("Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.")

Writing code is cheap for you, which makes over-engineering easy. Counter it with Occam's Razor: when deciding between competing designs, the implementation that introduces the fewest new abstractions, fewest assumptions, and least code is almost always the right one. Borrow a human maintainer's fatigue. Aim for the most result with the least code and complexity.

Aim for the maximum result with the least complexity.

  • Occam's Razor over premature architecture. Do not add interfaces, generic factories, or adapter layers for hypothetical future requirements. Solve today's concrete problem.
  • Prefer deletion. When asked to refactor or improve, search for removals before additions. Dead code deleted is zero-cost maintenance.
  • Maintain a flat call hierarchy. Avoid deep call chains. If answering a question requires tracing through more than 3 files or layers, flatten it.
  • Consolidate decisions. Do not repeat the same choice in several places. Put it behind one source of truth and pass the result as a simple flag.
  • Minimize the diff. Make the smallest change that completely solves the problem. Fewer lines beat "clever" boilerplate.
  • Question the threading. If a task asks you to pass a new signal through types, schemas, pipelines, or similar layers, stop and find the direct path.
  • Sweat the small leaks. Remove tiny pass-throughs, representation leaks, and duplicated choices before they spread. Small leaks compound into permanent coordination costs.

Prime directive: If a human developer would find the code exhausting to read, trace, or maintain, it is a bad solution. Apply Occam's Razor: stay lazy, stay simple.

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