Pre-computed context
Current branch: !git branch --show-current 2>/dev/null || echo "unknown"
Uncommitted code files: !git status --porcelain 2>/dev/null | awk '{print $NF}' | grep -Ei '\.(cs|ts|tsx|js|jsx|py|sh|ps1|go|rs|java|rb|lua|sql|c|h|cpp|hpp|yaml|yml|toml)$' | head -10 || echo "none"
Residue findings (sample): !bash "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/detect.sh" 2>/dev/null | grep -E '^(Summary total:|Finding shape:)' | head -20 || echo "none"
Purpose
Code comments accumulate RESIDUE — text that only makes sense outside the code's present state: narration of what the code used to be, references to the plan/session/changeset that produced it, asides addressed to the requester, and back-references to a ticket, PR, or branch no future reader will ever open. Version control owns history; the comment describes the present. A comment that only makes sense inside the chat thread that produced it is dead. This skill is a read-only classifier: it surfaces candidates with treatment guidance; the author hand-applies every deletion.
It detects residue on the COMMENT portion of a line only, so a residue-shaped word sitting in an identifier or string literal is never flagged. The positive question — does this comment capture something the code cannot (a non-obvious why, a constraint, an interface/design-intent contract)? — is left to the author; the shapes below are the comments that fail it.
Residue shapes and treatments
| Shape | What it looks like | Default tier | Treatment |
|---|---|---|---|
history-narration |
The comment narrates the code's past: "used to…", "no longer…", "previously", "renamed from X", "we switched from…", "now returns…" | 1 | Delete — version control owns history. Keep only if the reason for the change is a load-bearing constraint, rewritten as present-tense rationale ("must stay ordered because…") |
plan-reference |
References a work plan, session, or changeset rather than the code: "Task 2 replaces the old…", "as planned", "in this PR/commit/refactor" | 1 | Delete — the plan is not part of the code's meaning. Fold any surviving intent into a present-tense why-comment |
conversational-antecedent |
Addresses the requester or the producing conversation: "per your request", "as you asked", "like you said", "per our discussion" | 1 | Delete — the conversation is invisible to every future reader |
ticket-pr-residue |
Back-reference to a tracker/PR/branch a reader can't follow: "see PR #45", "from the feature branch", "JIRA-123" | 2 | Review — delete a bare provenance reference; a TODO(#issue) tracking real outstanding work is the sanctioned exception and is NOT flagged |
Consumers with their own comment conventions can refine these defaults in their repo's CLAUDE.md /
rules; the classifier's shapes and tiers above are the skill's built-in baseline.
Action router
| Action | Args | Behavior |
|---|---|---|
<target> (default, no action keyword) |
empty → uncommitted code files from git; file path → single-file; dir path → batch | run bash "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/detect.sh" on targets; map the emitted facts to the per-file tier table using the treatments above |
audit [target] |
same target rules | explicit form of the default; same behavior |
Auto-detect default
- Empty arg AND no uncommitted code files → friendly no-op exit 0 ("No uncommitted code files. Pass a file/dir target.")
- Empty arg AND uncommitted code files → batch audit over those files
- Single file path → single-file audit
- Directory path → batch audit (filenames sorted lexically for deterministic output)
- First positional ==
audit→ audit on rest (explicit form)
Hard rules
- Read-only. No
Edit, noWrite, no mutatingBashops. The author owns every deletion. - Tier semantics. Tier 1 = residue to remove; Tier 2 = review needed (a ticket reference may be a legitimate
TODO). - Code files only. Markdown is
/audit-noise's territory and is skipped; a.mdtarget yields no findings here. - Comment-scoped detection. Only the comment portion of a line is classified — residue-shaped words in code (identifiers, string literals) are not flagged.
TODO(#issue)is sanctioned. ATODO/FIXMEmarker tracking real work is never flagged as ticket residue.- Opt-out markers respected.
comment-residue-ignoreon a line (or the line before it) skips it. - Output deterministic. Filenames sort lexically; findings sort by line number; no timestamps.
Output schema
Per target file:
<file>: N finding(s) — T1=<n>, T2=<n>
| Tier | Shape | Line | Excerpt | Treatment |
|------|-------|------|---------|-----------|
| 1 | history-narration | 42 | "// used to buffer; now flushes" | Delete — version control owns history |
| 1 | conversational-antecedent | 12 | "# as you asked, retry three times" | Delete — invisible to future readers |
| 2 | ticket-pr-residue | 88 | "// see PR #45 for rationale" | Review — delete bare provenance; keep TODO(#issue) |
Batch aggregate at end:
Total: <N> file(s) audited, <T1> Tier 1, <T2> Tier 2 findings.
shape values: history-narration, plan-reference, conversational-antecedent, ticket-pr-residue.
What this skill is NOT
- Not "delete all comments." It targets residue, not comments that carry a non-obvious why or an interface/design-intent contract — those stay.
- Not
/code-tidying:tidy.tidyAPPLIES structural tidyings (including Beck's "Delete Redundant Comment" for comments that restate the code);audit-comment-residueis a read-only CLASSIFIER for the out-of-context residue class. Different concern, different mode. - Not
/audit-noise./audit-noiseowns markdown noise; this owns code-comment residue. Neither touches the other's surface. - Not an Edit operation. Read-only: it surfaces findings; the author applies deletions.
Sources
- Ousterhout ⇄ Clean Code debate — why the positive rule is "capture what code can't," not "comments are rare"
- Beck — Delete Redundant Comment — the boy-scout deletion tidying
- Google eng-practices — comments explain why, not what
- Abel — Comments are not Version Control — history/changelog residue belongs in VCS, not the code