Forge-core MinimizePrompt

Remove motivational, marketing, and filler prose from a prompt-shaped document while preserving directive content. USE WHEN adopting a community skill, authoring a skill or rule that feels bloated, or auditing an existing artifact for token waste. Applies MVPR principles.

install

source · Clone the upstream repo

git clone https://github.com/N4M3Z/forge-core

Claude Code · Install into ~/.claude/skills/

T=$(mktemp -d) && git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/N4M3Z/forge-core "$T" && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r "$T/skills/MinimizePrompt" ~/.claude/skills/n4m3z-forge-core-minimizeprompt && rm -rf "$T"

manifest: skills/MinimizePrompt/SKILL.md

source content

MinimizePrompt

Cut motivational, marketing, and emphasis-inflated prose from prompt-shaped documents. Preserve the directive content and the facts that make the artifact work.

Aligned with [MVPR-0001](docs/decisions/MVPR-0001 Minimum Viable Prompt.md) and [MVPR-0002](docs/decisions/MVPR-0002 Prompt Minimalization Metrics.md). Referenced by ForgeAdopt as the

minimize

transform.

What to remove

Pattern	Example
Motivational framing	"Don't hold back", "Claude is capable of extraordinary work"
Emphasis inflation	CAPS-LOCKED warnings, repeated `CRITICAL` or `IMPORTANT`
Marketing superlatives	"Production-ready", "Best-in-class", "Complete toolkit"
Filler transitions	"First of all", "It's worth noting", "As previously mentioned"
Tautology	"Use good practices" without defining good practices
Duplicate summaries	Opening paragraph repeats the description; closing repeats the opening
Decorative checkmarks	✅-bulleted feature lists that restate workflow content

What to preserve

Workflow steps and decision points
Anti-patterns with concrete examples ("avoid X because Y")
Tables, code blocks, and command examples
Constraints and hard rules
Frontmatter fields that affect routing —
```
description
```
,
```
allowed-tools
```
,
```
name
```
,
```
version
```

Red flags that a section should stay

A section earns its tokens if it does at least one of:

Cites a specific source, rule, benchmark, or prior decision
Names a concrete anti-pattern with a reason
Is referenced by another section in the same document
Carries a command, regex, schema, or structured data
Encodes a decision that cannot be reconstructed from names alone

If none of the above applies, the section is a candidate for removal.

Procedure

Read the document end-to-end once before cutting.
Identify the load-bearing sections — workflow, constraints, examples, tables. These are immune.
Sweep the remaining prose for the patterns in "What to remove." Cut per-pattern, not per-paragraph.
After each sweep, re-read. If a sentence no longer makes sense without a neighbor, the cut was too aggressive.
Measure the delta. A healthy minimization on a community prompt cuts 20-40% of tokens. More than 50% suggests content loss, not just filler loss.

Constraints

Never remove content that names a specific failure mode
Never collapse a table or code block into prose
Preserve anti-pattern lists even if worded emphatically — the emphasis is directive signal, not filler
Keep one concrete example per abstract principle; cut additional restatements
Do not rewrite in a different voice; remove, do not paraphrase