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Simplify Code — Parallel Review & Cleanup Setup Guide

Source: nousresearch/hermes-agent (187 installs) Category: Development / Code Quality License: MIT · Platforms: Linux, macOS, Windows Dependencies: Hermes Agent, git repository with recent changes

Run four focused code reviewers in parallel against your recent changes. Each reviewer hunts for one class of problem — reuse opportunities, quality issues, efficiency waste, and code altitude — without diluting its focus. This is a cleanup pass, not a bug hunt. It finds duplication, flattens needless complexity, cuts dead code, and deepens band-aid fixes.

What It Does

Reviewer Focus Catches
Reuse DRY violations Duplicate logic, copy-pasted blocks, missing abstractions
Quality Maintainability Unclear naming, missing error handling, brittle patterns
Efficiency Performance waste Unnecessary allocations, N+1 queries, blocking calls
Altitude Architecture Over-engineering, wrong abstraction level, scope creep

All four run concurrently — you pay the latency of one review, not four.

How It Works

┌──────────────────┐
│  git diff HEAD~3 │
└────────┬─────────┘
         │
    ┌────▼─────┬─────────┬──────────┬──────────┐
    │  Reuse   │ Quality │Efficiency│ Altitude │  ← All run in parallel
    └────┬─────┴────┬────┴────┬─────┴────┬─────┘
         │          │         │          │
         └──────────▼─────────▼──────────┘
                    │
            ┌───────▼───────┐
            │  Aggregated   │
            │  Findings +   │
            │  Fixes Applied│
            └───────────────┘

Installation

npx skills add https://github.com/nousresearch/hermes-agent --skill simplify-code

Direct from Hermes Agent Repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/nousresearch/hermes-agent.git /tmp/hermes-agent
cp -r /tmp/hermes-agent/skills/development/simplify-code ~/.hermes/skills/

Basic Usage

After a coding session, trigger the cleanup:

> Load simplify-code skill
> Review my last 3 commits with simplify-code

Or specify scope:

> Simplify the auth module — focus on the /src/auth/ directory

Hermes spawns four reviewers concurrently, each searching the codebase for its specific problem class. After all four complete (in parallel), findings are aggregated and fixes applied.

When to Use vs When Not

✅ Use After ❌ Don't Use For
Feature completion — before PR Bug hunting (use requesting-code-review)
Multi-commit sessions Security audits
Before merging to main Correctness verification
Refactoring prep — see what to clean First-draft code (finish it first)
Reducing technical debt sprints Generated/auto-formatted code

Tips

  • Run after requesting-code-review: That catches bugs. This catches waste.
  • Scope matters: Narrow the file/directory scope for focused cleanup; broad for architectural review
  • Review findings are actionable: Each issue comes with a suggested fix, not just a flag
  • Don't apply blindly: The altitude reviewer may suggest refactors — evaluate before applying

Troubleshooting

Problem Likely Cause Fix
Reviewers time out Codebase too large Narrow scope to specific directories
Too many findings First run on old codebase Apply fixes iteratively, re-run
Altitude reviewer too aggressive Large architectural suggestions Evaluate; this reviewer has the widest lens

Comparison with requesting-code-review

Aspect simplify-code requesting-code-review
Purpose Cleanup, reduce waste Bug detection, correctness
Reviewers 4 parallel (reuse, quality, efficiency, altitude) Comprehensive code review
When After feature works Before feature is "done"
Output Fixes + suggestions Bug reports + issues

← Skills Catalog | nousresearch/hermes-agent on skills.sh

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