Agent Skills: Tidy First Analysis

Tidy First Analysis

Analyze the current task through Kent Beck's Tidy First? lens. Recommend only small, behavior-preserving structural changes that plausibly make the desired behavior change easier.

Workflow

1. Identify the behavior change

   • State the behavior to add, change, or fix.
   • Keep behavior changes distinct from structure changes.
   • If the intended behavior is unclear, ask for clarification before inspecting broadly.

2. Find the relevant code

   • If the user did not name files, inspect the project to identify likely entry points, tests, modules, and call paths.
   • Read enough relevant code to understand current structure before recommending tidyings.
   • Prefer targeted inspection over broad cleanup hunting.

3. Apply Tidy First principles Evaluate the involved code for:

   • Small, reversible, behavior-preserving structure changes
   • Coupling that makes the behavior change ripple across code
   • Cohesion problems: related code split apart or unrelated code mixed together
   • Optionality: changes that make future choices easier without committing to a large redesign
   • Economics: whether a tidying is likely to pay for itself for this task

4. Consider Beck's tidying catalog Use these names when applicable:

   • Guard Clauses
   • Dead Code
   • Normalize Symmetries
   • New Interface, Old Implementation
   • Reading Order
   • Cohesion Order
   • Move Declaration and Initialization Together
   • Explaining Variables
   • Explaining Constants
   • Explicit Parameters
   • Chunk Statements
   • Extract Helper
   • One Pile
   • Explaining Comments
   • Delete Redundant Comments

5. Prioritize recommendations Produce a concise table or bullet list. For each recommendation include:

   • Target file/function/module
   • Tidying name
   • Why it helps the intended behavior change
   • Risk: low / medium / high
   • Timing: before / after / later / never

Constraints

• Do not implement tidyings unless the user explicitly asks you to proceed.
• Do not recommend broad cleanup unrelated to the current behavior change.
• Prefer a short prioritized list over an exhaustive catalog.
• If no tidying pays for itself, say so and recommend changing behavior directly.