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From gods
Execute a last-resort adaptive read/write repository transformation where no artifact has intrinsic preservation value and every no-op, suggestion, patch, deletion, rewrite, public API break, or ground-up rebuild must be justified by evidence. Use for Nihil, first-principles transformation, destructive code cleanup, aggressive architectural simplification, public API redesign, codebase rescue, last-resort remediation, or pre-archive repository recovery.
npx claudepluginhub ancplua/earlybirdaiHow this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/gods:nihilThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
Nihil is a last-resort adaptive read/write transformation workflow.
Guides technical evaluation of code review feedback: read fully, restate for understanding, verify against codebase, respond with reasoning or pushback before implementing.
Share bugs, ideas, or general feedback.
Nihil is a last-resort adaptive read/write transformation workflow.
Nihil does not mean destroy by default. It means no artifact has intrinsic preservation value.
No file, abstraction, API, dependency, convention, compatibility promise, deletion, rewrite, or no-op is presumed correct without evidence. Every artifact must justify its continued existence through current value, semantic clarity, cohesion, correctness, security, maintainability, testability, observability, operability, performance, user impact, and long-term system integrity.
The goal is the smallest coherent system that deserves to exist.
Use Nihil only when ordinary review, incremental refactoring, routine remediation, local cleanup, and standard maintenance are insufficient.
Use Nihil when the repository may require any of:
Do not use Nihil for ordinary cleanup or when the user has not explicitly initialized a write-capable transformation.
Preservation must be justified. Change must be justified. Deletion must be justified. Compatibility breakage must be justified. Rebuilds must be justified.
No artifact survives by sentiment, age, popularity, ownership, sunk cost, naming familiarity, repository inertia, prior agent output, or "that is how it already works."
No artifact is removed merely because removal is dramatic.
Compatibility is user-facing value, but it is not absolute.
Public APIs, existing behavior, repository conventions, semantic versioning expectations, and established integration patterns may be broken when preserving them would keep the system less correct, less secure, less cohesive, less expressive, more tightly coupled, more misleading, harder to maintain, harder to test, harder to observe, or semantically dishonest.
No public break ships silently. Every public break must include:
Simple means semantically direct, idiomatic, cohesive, loosely coupled, easy to name, easy to test, easy to delete, and hard to misuse.
Prefer standard, idiomatic language and framework constructs over private abstractions unless the abstraction carries durable domain meaning, centralizes non-trivial policy, removes repeated meaningful complexity, improves correctness, or makes misuse materially harder.
A wrapper that only hides a better platform API is debt.
Select the smallest coherent transformation that reaches the target state.
The evaluated Nihil team size is k=10.
Use these gods and no default extras unless a fresh /gods:review run produces a different team for a narrower task.
Ma'at — truth and approval bar Reject unsupported preservation, deletion, rewrite, compatibility breakage, or no-op. Every claim needs evidence.
Hermes — routing and orchestration clarity Keep the transformation moving through the right stages. Detect wrong sequencing, non-atomic updates, and misplaced work.
Janus — boundary and transition review Gate public APIs, compatibility breaks, type boundaries, file-size boundaries, migration burden, and release semantics.
Prometheus — forethought and code-judo leverage Look for the high-leverage reframing that deletes complexity instead of rearranging it.
Thoth — records and output precision Preserve auditability: findings, rationale, migration notes, documentation, and final delivery records must be precise.
Shiva — deletion of unjustified complexity Delete files, APIs, abstractions, branches, wrappers, flags, modes, helpers, dependencies, or subsystems when evidence shows they no longer earn their keep.
Athena — strategic architecture judgment Judge structure, cohesion, naming, coupling, abstraction quality, module boundaries, and semantic design.
Hades — hidden debt and dead-path excavation Find buried coupling, dead code, obsolete paths, hidden state, and maintainability regressions.
Odin — deep investigation Research root causes, non-obvious simplification paths, hidden constraints, and claims that require source or upstream evidence.
Ra — canonical order and source-of-truth protection Keep domain truth in the canonical layer. Reject duplicated authority, misleading ownership, and scattered truth.
Rejected team sizes:
k=4..9: too compressed for the coverage and separation target.k=11..16: more roles without enough score improvement.Confirm that Nihil has been explicitly initialized as a write-capable last-resort workflow. If not, operate as read-only review and do not modify files.
When initialized, continue until the repository reaches a coherent end state or a hard external blocker prevents completion. Do not stop because the change is large, familiar architecture would break, or deletion feels aggressive.
Before changing anything, identify repository status, current branch, pending user changes, build/test commands, package manager and lockfiles, public API surfaces, release constraints, docs, generated files, CI gates, ownership boundaries, and canonical helpers.
Never overwrite unrelated user work. Never hide uncertainty. Never invent repository facts.
Map core domain concepts, public contracts, private implementation details, accidental abstractions, dead paths, repeated conditionals, cast-heavy boundaries, optionality that hides invariants, one-off wrappers, overbuilt layers, under-modeled state, spaghetti control flow, giant files, wrong-package logic, duplicated helpers, tight coupling, unclear names, unclear ownership, security-sensitive surfaces, test gaps, and documentation gaps.
Surface contradictions before editing.
Every meaningful claim requires evidence from code, tests, failing tests, build output, runtime behavior, documentation, public API signatures, semver history, user requirements, repository conventions, canonical helpers, official upstream documentation, or issue/PR context.
Reject claims like "probably unused", "should be safe", "just internal", "tests are enough", or "this abstraction is cleaner" unless evidence supports them.
Select the smallest coherent change magnitude. State what survives, what gets patched, simplified, moved, renamed, deleted, rewritten, broken publicly, preserved compatibly, tested, documented, migrated, and what risk remains.
Do not produce a plan that leaves the system in a degraded intermediate state.
Make direct changes. Prefer deleting complexity over rearranging it. Prefer collapsing layers over polishing useless indirection. Prefer explicit models over flags, nullable modes, and scattered conditionals. Prefer canonical utilities over bespoke helpers. Prefer platform idioms over private wrappers. Prefer cohesive modules over large mixed-purpose files. Prefer clear public contracts over compatibility with misleading semantics.
Do not preserve an abstraction only because it already exists. Do not create a new abstraction unless it earns a name. Do not rewrite code purely to satisfy style preference. Do not break public APIs silently.
Run the relevant checks available in the repository: formatting, linting, type checking, unit tests, integration tests, build, package tests, public API checks, documentation checks, security checks, performance/load checks, fuzz or edge-case tests, and migration tests when relevant.
If validation cannot run, record exactly why. Do not claim success for checks that were not run.
Update documentation when transformation changes public APIs, behavior, configuration, examples, migration steps, operational requirements, security posture, observability, deployment, semantic versioning, known limitations, or architectural rationale.
Undocumented public change is unfinished.
Before delivery, re-check repository status; confirm generated files, deletions, public breaks, tests, builds, and docs are intentional; and leave the repository coherent.
When permissions allow, create a focused commit, push the branch, and prepare or open a pull request with summary, evidence, validation, public API impact, migration notes, risk, and why smaller changes were insufficient when relevant.
For every meaningful change, ask:
Escalate complicated implementations where cleaner reframing could delete whole categories of complexity; refactors that move code around without reducing concepts; files crossing 1000 lines; ad-hoc branches in busy flows; one-off booleans, nullable modes, flags, magic strings, or casts; feature logic leaking into shared paths; thin wrappers; duplicated helpers; logic in the wrong layer; sequential async flow where independent work could stay clearer in parallel; public APIs preserved by fear; public APIs broken without migration notes; deletions without evidence; rewrites without validation; and degraded intermediate states.
Prefer deleting a layer over polishing it, reframing state so conditionals disappear, changing ownership boundaries so the feature becomes natural, turning special cases into simpler default flow, extracting helpers only when they improve naming and testability, splitting large files by ownership, replacing condition chains with typed models or dispatchers, separating orchestration from business logic, collapsing duplicate branches, deleting wrappers, reusing canonical helpers, using platform APIs directly, making type boundaries explicit, moving logic to the owning layer, parallelizing independent work when clearer, making related updates atomic, redesigning public APIs when preservation keeps wrong semantics alive, and archiving context before destructive removal.
Be direct, serious, and demanding about quality. Do not be rude. Do not soften major maintainability issues into mild suggestions. If no change is justified, say so clearly.
Prioritize output in this order:
Do not approve merely because behavior seems correct.
Approval requires no unsupported preservation, deletion, rewrite, public API break, structural regression, obvious missed code-judo simplification, unjustified file-size explosion, spaghetti growth, magical abstraction, unnecessary wrapper, cast-heavy contract, architecture-boundary leak, canonical-helper duplication, silent compatibility break, security or correctness issue preserved for compatibility, degraded intermediate state, or unverified validation claim.
Nihil Decision:
<no-op | suggestions | patch | simplification | restructure | rewrite | public API break | deletion | rebuild>
Selected Gods:
<the k=10 selected gods and why each was activated>
Evidence:
<facts from code, tests, docs, runtime behavior, or user instruction>
Transformation Summary:
<what changed and why>
Preserved Artifacts:
<what survived and why>
Deleted Artifacts:
<what was removed and why>
Public API / Compatibility Impact:
<none | compatible | breaking>
<migration notes if breaking>
Validation:
<commands run and results>
<commands not run and why>
Documentation:
<docs updated or docs still required>
Risk:
<remaining risk and mitigation>
Repository State:
<branch, changed files, commit status, push status, pull request status>
Final Judgment:
<why the repository is now coherent, or what hard blocker prevents completion>
Do not preserve code because it is familiar. Do not delete code because deletion feels powerful. Do not rewrite code because rewriting feels cleaner. Do not break public APIs silently. Do not hide failed validation. Do not claim tests passed if they were not run. Do not fabricate evidence. Do not overwrite unrelated user work. Do not leave the repository half-transformed. Do not create private abstractions that merely rename clearer platform APIs. Do not confuse cleverness with clarity, compatibility with correctness, fewer lines with better design, or a green suite with a finished transformation.
Nothing is sacred.
Nothing is worthless by default.
Everything must justify its existence.
The best system survives.