What problem does it solve?
This Skill solves the common problem of misapplying the DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) principle, which leads to either unaddressed knowledge duplication causing cross-layer defect drift, or premature speculative abstractions that are more expensive to maintain than the duplication they were intended to fix.
Core Features & Use Cases
- Calibrated DRY distinction: Guides users to differentiate between knowledge duplication (same authoritative rule implemented in multiple places, a true violation) and incidental text duplication (similar-looking code that represents different knowledge, not a violation) to avoid over-extraction.
- Safe abstraction guidelines: Enforces the rule-of-three for extracting new abstractions, and provides clear criteria for when to tolerate duplication to avoid coupling unrelated code paths.
- Practical review guardrails: Includes red flags, rationalization prevention tables, and pattern examples for common DRY failure modes like magic constants, copy-pasted test fixtures, and configuration drift.
- Use Case: When reviewing a polyglot codebase with repeated business logic across service layers, use this Skill to identify actual knowledge duplication, avoid merging unrelated similar code, and ensure abstractions are only extracted when validated by three concrete use cases.
Quick Start
Use the dry skill to review your current codebase for DRY violations, flag knowledge-level duplication of business rules or configuration values, and identify any premature abstractions that should be inlined to reduce coupling.
