code-simplification

Refactor code for readability by applying behavior-preserving transformations, such as extracting guard clauses and reducing nesting, while running lint, typecheck, and tests to ensure exact behavior preservation across all inputs.

Reduce nesting and improve naming during refactoring after features work and tests pass, especially when code review flags complexity, ensuring changes are scoped and behavior remains exactly preserved.

The best way to simplify complex code without causing regressions is to keep each simplification separate and reviewable, follow Chesterton's Fence to understand guards, and run the full verification checklist before committing.

You can remove redundant logic, but you must follow Chesterton's Fence to understand any purposeful weird logic or guards before deleting them, ensuring changes remain strictly behavior-preserving.

Code simplification requires a passing test suite to verify behavior preservation, as the workflow mandates running lint, typecheck, and tests with behavior-preserving edits only to prevent drive-by changes.

Prevent unrelated diffs during clarity refactoring by applying safety rails that scope changes strictly to the simplification task, keeping each edit separate and reviewable without introducing drive-by modifications.