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Minimize Reader Load · cursor | DecimalAI

codingby cursor

Minimize Reader Load

cursor/principle-minimize-reader-load

Source cursor/plugins ↗License Not recorded

Apply when reviewing or shaping code that's hard to trace. Count layers between question and answer, and hidden state in the reader's head; collapse one-caller wrappers and shrink mutable scope.

NewMaintained

On-demandOn-demand: invoked explicitly — never occupies your agent's context until called.

Coding pack

Last verified 9/27/2026

What it changes

Passed 21 of 23 test cases with the skill, and 21 of 23 without it.

Without skill91%

With skill91%

Checks it passed that the model alone missed

Recommend hiding low-level session details behind the service boundary.

1 fixed20 passed either way1 still failing1 broke

Pass-rate lift: 0 pp
Tokens: -4%
Agent turns: 0%
Response time: -18%

Model gemini-3.6-flashMeasured 9/27/2026v221 of 23 cases passed with skill

Tokens, turns and time describe resource use, not a dollar price.

Use this skill

Save it into your project's skills folder. Claude Code picks it up in its next session.

curl -fsSL --create-dirs -o .claude/skills/cursor-principle-minimize-reader-load/SKILL.md https://app.decimal.ai/s/cursor-principle-minimize-reader-load/SKILL.md

Want it pinned and updatable? pip install "decimalai>=0.15", then decimalai skills add cursor-principle-minimize-reader-load, and start Claude Code with claude --plugin-dir "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)/.agents"

1 · One-time — install the CLI (docs ↗)

pip install "decimalai>=0.15"

2 · Get the skill — writes .agents/skills/cursor-principle-minimize-reader-load/ and pins it in .decimal/skills.lock

decimalai skills add cursor-principle-minimize-reader-load

No CLI? Get the same file — curl · raw file

curl -fsSL --create-dirs -o .claude/skills/cursor-principle-minimize-reader-load/SKILL.md https://app.decimal.ai/s/cursor-principle-minimize-reader-load/SKILL.md

Raw file: /s/cursor-principle-minimize-reader-load/SKILL.md ↗ · machine-readable summary at /s/cursor-principle-minimize-reader-load.json ↗

Safety checks: 3 of 3 passed

Code scan CleanIntent PassedContent Clean

See it in action

A test case the skill fixed. Same model, same prompt, with and without the skill.

Prompt

An internal user management service exposes an interface with 28 public methods covering raw database queries, session tokens, audit logging, and email sending. Most callers only need to verify if a user has an active subscription. How should this interface boundary be refactored?

What was checked, without and with the skill
Checked	Without skill	With skill
Recommend narrowing the interface to expose high-level domain operations.	Passed	Passed
Recommend hiding low-level session details behind the service boundary.	Missed	Passed

case-05 · gemini-3.6-flash · 9/27/2026 · answers are capped and redacted

What's inside

The instructions your model reads when the skill loads.

SKILL.md17 linessingle file

Minimize Reader Load

Maintainability is the work a reader must do to understand code. Track two axes:

Layers to trace. How many indirections sit between the question and the answer.
State to hold. How much hidden or mutable context the reader must keep in their head.

Why: Code is read far more than it is written. LOC, cyclomatic complexity, and "clean architecture" are proxies. Reader load is the thing that matters. The two axes are independent. A flat file with 50 globals can be as hard to reason about as a 6-layer adapter stack. Guard both. This is the human analog of Guard the Context Window. Working memory is finite for readers too.

The pattern:

Collapse layers that cost more than they save: wrappers with one caller, adapters with no second implementation, speculative indirection that was never needed. Inline them.
Make adjacent layers change the abstraction. A layer that repeats the same methods and arguments adds reader load without compression. Collapse pass-through layers.
Demand interface compression. A broad interface that hides little complexity makes readers learn both the surface and the implementation. Prefer boundaries that hide meaningful decisions.
Shrink state scope: prefer pure functions (returns over mutations), locals over fields, fields over module state, and module state over globals. Derive instead of sync.
Name the invariant at the boundary, not in every consumer, so the reader learns it once.
Before adding a layer or a piece of state, ask: does this reduce reader load somewhere else by at least as much?

The test: Can a new reader answer "where does X come from?" and "what can change X?" in under 30 seconds? If not, cut layers or cut state.

Track record

Benchmark

21 / 23

test cases passed, vs 21 / 23 without

Adoption

Users: 0
Times used: 0

Safety and source details

SkillSafety

✓ 3 of 3 passed

Code scan15 of 15 checks clean

0 critical · 0 warning · 0 info — scanner v5 — 9/8/2026

View 15 scanner checks

live_secretremote_code_executionreverse_shelldata_exfiltrationssrf_metadataagent_snoopinganti_refusaldestructive_commandsobfuscated_unicodeunicode_homoglyphopaque_blobsuspicious_urltool_overreachtrigger_abuseprompt_injection_phrasing

IntentSafe

LLM judge · does the skill do what it claims

ContentClean

LLM judge · policy & harmful-content review

Source

Imported

cursor / plugins

pstack/skills/principle-minimize-reader-load/SKILL.md

View on GitHub ↗

Imported 9/8/2026Version v2

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See it in action

What's inside

Minimize Reader Load

Track record

Benchmark

Adoption

SkillSafety

Source

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