Claude Code /simplify
Shares rank 18 of 23 agent skills by recommenders
Claude Code skill that trims over-engineering and verbosity in code; people find it effective, though some engineers get weaker results and a benchmark found no test pass gains.
Claude Code skill that trims over-engineering and verbosity in code; people find it effective, though some engineers get weaker results and a benchmark found no test pass gains.
12 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 9
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 75%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 9 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Cuts over-engineering and verbosity
“basically solves the erosion and verbosity metrics SCB flagged; after running the SCB benchmark I cannot find any evidence that it actually improves test pass rate trajectories”
Comment from 20 Oct 2026 in “SlopCodeBench 10/2026 – Opus 5.5, Astra wins overall, xhigh considered harmful” “It walks back over-engineerings quite often for me.”
Comment from 24 Mar 2026 in “How I'm Productive with Claude Code” Effective and worth using
“What's also been really helpful to me is /simplify and similar code review skills”
Comment from 14 Apr 2026 in “The Human Cost of 10x: How AI Is Physically Breaking Senior Engineers” “It still surprises me how effective the /simplify skill is.”
Comment from 5 May 2026 in “Agents for financial services and insurance” “Yeah /simplify is your friend.”
Comment from 4 Apr 2026 in “The Cathedral, the Bazaar, and the Winchester Mystery House”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Mixed results for some engineers
“Some engineers I work with have had less than desirable results with /simplify but it overall seems to work!”
Comment from 7 May 2026 in “Agents for financial services and insurance” No test pass rate gain found
“basically solves the erosion and verbosity metrics SCB flagged; after running the SCB benchmark I cannot find any evidence that it actually improves test pass rate trajectories”
Comment from 20 Oct 2026 in “SlopCodeBench 10/2026 – Opus 5.5, Astra wins overall, xhigh considered harmful”
Other agent skills people recommend
The four most recommended other agent skills, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Superpowers | 138 | 72 | 66% | 12 | 4 mo7 owners | — |
| Claude Skills | 59 | 26 | 69% | 11 | — | Approved |
| grill-me skill by Matt Pocock | 39 | 2 | 95% | 8 | — | Approved |
| Get Shit Done | 31 | 32 | 49% | 7 | — | — |
| Claude Code /simplifyThis page | 9 | 3 | 75% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
11 of the 13 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“basically solves the erosion and verbosity metrics SCB flagged; after running the SCB benchmark I cannot find any evidence that it actually improves test pass rate trajectories”
“Next to /simplify I have to run a special comment cleanup pass and even that gets me halfway there”
“just checked, yeap Simplify is good in comparison”
“disappointed you guys removed /simplify because I quite liked the focus on finding code reuse/efficiency opportunities”
“Some engineers I work with have had less than desirable results with /simplify but it overall seems to work!”
“It still surprises me how effective the /simplify skill is.”
“The only exception being maybe the /simplify command”
“What's also been really helpful to me is /simplify and similar code review skills”
“Yeah /simplify is your friend.”
“It walks back over-engineerings quite often for me.”
“Try the new /simplify command.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.