/compress-architecture: An Agent Skill to Prune Over-Engineering

A Reddit user (u/CamWebby) built /compress-architecture, an agent skill for AI coding agents that focuses on removing unnecessary architecture rather than adding it. The core question it asks: “Can the system do the same job with fewer visible parts?” The goal is fewer concepts, clearer ownership, and less incidental coupling — not fewer files or lines.

What It Audits

• Speculative layers (abstractions for features that never materialized)
• Pass-through modules (code that just delegates without adding value)
• Duplicate concepts (two ways to do the same thing)
• Abstractions that no longer earn their keep (overhead > benefit)

What It Protects

• Real domain boundaries (actual business logic seams)
• Public APIs (contracts consumed externally)
• Testability seams (dependency injection, interfaces that enable testing)
• Explicit error handling (not swallowed or concealed)
• Code that changes at different rates (separate evolution paths)

The skill is designed to be run as part of an AI coding agent's workflow, presumably via a command like /compress-architecture against a codebase directory. It's not a standalone tool — it's an agent skill that modifies the agent's behavior to audit and suggest removals.

Who It's For

Developers using AI coding agents (e.g., Claude, Copilot, etc.) who want to automatically detect and remove over-engineering from their codebases without breaking legitimate architectural boundaries.