---
name: principle-minimize-reader-load
description: "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."
disable-model-invocation: true
---

# Minimize Reader Load

Maintainability is the work a reader must do to understand code. Track two axes:
1. **Layers to trace.** How many indirections sit between the question and the answer.
2. **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](../principle-guard-the-context-window/SKILL.md). 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.

## Session capabilities and permissions

Use [host capabilities](../../references/host-capabilities.md) to discover available read, write and execution tools. Inspect the concrete path, its callers and mutable state before deciding which layers to collapse. Make edits only within the authorized task and available write permissions. Run appropriate checks only through observed execution tools.

When source is readable but writes or execution are denied or unavailable, give a source-grounded proposal and identify the edits or checks you could not perform. Without source or sufficient caller and state evidence, report the missing evidence and stop concrete refactoring claims. Do not claim a measured reader time without observation. Preserve invocation metadata without assuming the host enforces it.