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/principle-subtract-before-you-add

Apply when sequencing an addition, refactor, or rewrite. Remove dead code, redundant validators, and stub references first, then build on the simpler base.

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@cursorcursor@cursor
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Claude Code

$ npx -y skills add cursor/plugins --skill principle-subtract-before-you-add --agent claude-code

SKILL.md

principle-subtract-before-you-add.SKILL.md
name: principle-subtract-before-you-add
description: "Apply when sequencing an addition, refactor, or rewrite. Remove dead code, redundant validators, and stub references first, then build on the simpler base."
disable-model-invocation: true

Subtract Before You Add

When evolving a system, remove complexity first, then build. Default to subtraction.

Make simplification a continual investment. Leave the design slightly simpler and more capable behind the same or smaller surface than you found it.

  • Sequence removal before construction
  • Cut before you polish (get to the minimum before investing in quality)
  • Design for observed usage, not speculative edge cases
  • No speculative validators, parsers, or guards beyond what the spec demands
  • Simplify prompts (remove redundant instructions, excessive templates)
  • When a reference has no novel content, delete it rather than leaving a stub
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Repo: cursor/plugins

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Official Cursor plugins for popular developer tools, frameworks, and SaaS products. Each plugin is a standalone directory at the repository root with its own .cursor-plugin/plugin.json manifest.

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Questions about principle-subtract-before-you-add.

Which coding agents can use principle-subtract-before-you-add?
principle-subtract-before-you-add installs in Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot, OpenCode and Windsurf with the skills CLI, using each agent's flag shown on this page. Flowy's auto-invocation, which fires a skill when your prompt matches, runs in Claude Code only.