---
name: compress
description: "Use right after writing new feature code or finishing a refactor in Smith: compress duplication, needless layers, and weak abstractions in the touched code into a smaller DRY design without asking."
---

# Compress

Make code smaller, clearer, and more powerful by removing repetition and accidental complexity.
DRY design compression, not code golf.
Runs unattended: no questions, no approval gates, no stopping between passes.

## Scope

- Code touched by the current change (`jj diff --stat`, or the area the user names).
- Behavior, tests, and public API stay; breaking change → list under Remaining, do not apply.
- Second scope surfaces → list under Remaining, do not chase.

## Targets

- Near-duplicate fns, modules, data shapes, errors, tests, command handlers.
- Boilerplate better served by helper, enum, table, or data-driven path.
- Overbroad abstractions hiding simple control flow.
- Under-abstracted repeated logic that drifts.
- Needless wrappers, pass-through methods, dead layers, repeated conversions.
- Stringly typed domains that belong in enums, newtypes, typed config.

## Bar

- One good abstraction over many clever ones.
- Ownership stays clear; no new `clone`, `Arc`, `Mutex`, dynamic dispatch without justification.
- `Result` + `?` stays explicit.
- Benchmark before perf-motivated compression.

## Work

1. Read touched code and local patterns before proposing shared shapes.
2. Run scoped gates; keep pre-existing failures visible.
3. Rank candidates by drift risk removed per line changed; apply low and medium behavior-risk edits, log high.
4. Existing tests do not pin behavior → add focused test before compressing.
5. Run scoped gates again.

## Report

```markdown
## Status
complete | blocked | failed

## Candidates
- `path` · duplication · proposal · benefit · risk

## Changes
- `path` · change · why

## Behavior risk
low | medium | high

## Tests
- gates run, before and after

## Remaining
- deferred candidates, breaking proposals
```