first-principles-architecture

Apply first-principles analysis by deconstructing the system to its fundamental primitives, questioning each framework and dependency assumption, then rebuilding with minimal moving parts. The audit template lists three bloated abstractions to remove and two direct primitives to adopt.

First-principles thinking strips away conventions and legacy assumptions to reason from physical and computational constraints like memory, CPU cycles, and bandwidth. It then rebuilds the architecture from the ground up based strictly on efficiency and simplicity.

Replace heavy frameworks when a simpler primitive achieves the same result with far less overhead, such as using a native screen capture tool instead of a headless browser. The skill audits memory footprint and latency per execution loop to justify the swap.

The analysis produces recommendations and refactoring plans but does not execute code changes itself. It also requires human judgment to validate that proposed simplifications preserve required business functionality and team conventions.

The audit runs in three stages: a fundamental physics audit of memory, latency, and dependency overhead; a list of high-impact simplifications; and a concrete action plan with line-by-line refactoring justification.