From pare-claude-md
Pare down a CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md file to its bare essentials using the "obviousness" principle. Removes anything a staff-level engineer or AI assistant would already know, and ensures the file starts with core engineering principles.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/pare-claude-md:pare-claude-mdThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
Trim a CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md file to only what matters: non-obvious, project-specific information that deviates from convention.
Trim a CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md file to only what matters: non-obvious, project-specific information that deviates from convention.
If $ARGUMENTS is provided, use it as the file path. Otherwise, look for CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md in the current working directory. If multiple exist, ask the user which one to pare.
Read the file in full before making any changes.
Before deciding what's obvious vs. non-obvious, build context about the project. Use the Explore agent or Glob/Grep/Read tools to survey:
Spend no more than a few minutes on this. The goal is not a full audit — it's enough context to judge which CLAUDE.md entries are genuinely non-obvious for this specific repo versus which are standard for its stack.
Ensure the file begins with this block (add it if missing, replace any existing version):
## Core Engineering Principles
1. **Clarity over cleverness** — Write code that's maintainable, not impressive
2. **Explicit over implicit** — No magic. Make behavior obvious
3. **Composition over inheritance** — Small units that combine
4. **Fail fast, fail loud** — Surface errors at the source
5. **Delete code** — Less code = fewer bugs. Question every addition
6. **Verify, don't assume** — Run it. Test it. Prove it works
Go through every remaining section, bullet, and instruction in the file. For each piece of information, ask:
"Would a staff-level software engineer, or a capable AI coding assistant, already know this or consider it standard practice?"
Remove anything that is:
const instead of let when the value doesn't change")npm install before npm start")Keep anything that is:
Important clarification: This is about obviousness, not discoverability. Even if something could be found by searching the codebase, if it's non-obvious or surprising, keep it. The point is to avoid wasting time rediscovering things.
For any content that survives the obviousness filter:
Show the user a before/after comparison:
If the file was already lean, say so and suggest no changes.
npx claudepluginhub wooters/pare-claude-md --plugin pare-claude-mdUpdates, refreshes, optimizes, and cleans up CLAUDE.md by exploring codebase, removing stale content, and restructuring for scannability. Use when docs are out of sync.
Refactors large CLAUDE.md files into a hierarchical directory-scoped structure for optimized Claude Code context delivery.
Creates, edits, and optimizes skills for Claude Code, including drafting, evaluating with test prompts, iterating on performance, and improving skill descriptions for better triggering accuracy.