clean-code-guard

Run a guard pass on the diff checking for swallowed errors, hallucinated API calls, premature abstractions, duplicated logic, and hardcoded success returns. The skill provides 24 imperatives plus a structured review checklist that produces severity-ranked findings with concrete fixes.

Documented failure modes include catch-all error handling that swallows failures, defensive guards for impossible cases, premature abstraction, comment pollution, code duplication, hallucinated packages, and mock fallbacks returned as real implementations. Research shows code duplication grew 8x and package hallucination averages 19.6% across models.

No. It is a portable instruction skill requiring no MCP server, network access, API key, shell command, or bundled script. It works in any runtime that supports SKILL.md files with linked references, and it complements rather than replaces project linters and test runners.

Skip the guard pass for conceptual questions, CI configuration, git workflow tasks, prose writing, and data analysis. The skill targets production code changes only, and project conventions override its rules when they conflict.

Each rule cites a primary source such as Uncle Bob, Fowler, Hunt and Thomas, McCabe, or Metz, plus published 2024-2026 research. For context-specific overrides, document an exception comment naming the principle, the reason, and a revisit trigger.