simplify-code

Cover the requested scope completely. A clean file can finish with no changes. For a directory, track each file as changed, already clear, excluded, or blocked, in bounded batches, so a large scope does not silently turn into a sample.

For an explicit request to review or clean only comments, follow comment review and cleanup and finish with its report. An unclear comment request is an audit. Automatic selection for ordinary code simplification does not start a comment audit or pruning pass. Keep comment changes needed by an authorized code edit with that edit; otherwise preserve them.

1. Bind the scope. Resolve tagged, relative, or absolute paths. Read applicable repository instructions and record existing changes. A directory recurses by default; honor --only, --exclude, --shallow, and --dry-run, and respect ignored files and dependency or build folders. Exclude generated files. Include tests only when the user does, preserve their behavior, and preserve all required checks. For an audit or dry run, report proposals without editing.
2. Trace behavior. Read each included file in full and follow its exports, callers, and the nearest useful tests. Identify inputs, outputs, errors, side effects, and ordering or concurrency guarantees before choosing a simplification. Process shared types and helpers before consumers. Distinguish intended duplication from two copies of the same responsibility.
3. Simplify at the owner. Reuse an existing helper or standard API where it fits. Prefer clear control flow, useful names, and one owner for an invariant. A cross-file change within the scope is appropriate when it fixes ownership. Keep abstractions that protect a real boundary, and do not extract one just to shorten files. Judge complexity by what a maintainer must understand, not line count or a global style preference.
4. Prove preservation. A check that selected zero tests, was skipped or cached, or masked its exit code did not run; a forced failure counts only after confirming the forcing edit applied. Inspect the complete diff, account for affected callers, and run the closest meaningful existing checks plus repository gates. When no existing check exercises the changed behavior, a type check or lint pass does not prove preservation: compare old and new outputs with a throwaway script outside the repository, or report preservation unverified. Add tests only under the repository's test-value policy. Keep adjacent changes to what the requested simplification needs; surface a material public-contract, risk, or scope decision before changing it.

Report what changed and why, which files needed no changes (coverage totals for a directory), and the passed, failed, and unrun checks. Finish when every included file is accounted for and the required checks pass, or name the specific evidence or decision still needed.