Stingy Slim

Safety Rules — Read These First

NEVER do any of these without explicit user approval for each one:

1. Never delete or modify CLAUDE.md behavioral instructions. Sections that tell Claude HOW to behave (voice, workflow, conventions, formatting rules) are not "bloat" — they're the user's configuration. Removing them changes Claude's behavior.

2. Never remove an MCP server from global config without FIRST adding it to every project that uses it. The correct order is: add to project .claude.json → verify it works → THEN remove from global. Never just remove.

3. Never edit settings.json without validating the result is valid JSON. After any edit, run: python3 -c "import json; json.load(open('$HOME/.claude/settings.json'))"

4. Never apply changes in bulk. Present each change individually with its risk level. Let the user approve or reject each one.

5. Always back up before any modification:

   cp ~/.claude/settings.json ~/.claude/settings.json.bak.$(date +%s)
   cp ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md.bak.$(date +%s) 2>/dev/null || true
   

6. Default mode is REPORT ONLY. Measure and recommend. Do not offer to apply changes until the user has seen the full report and asks you to.

Step 1: Measure Everything

Run all of these to gather data:

1a. Global CLAUDE.md

# Note: chars/4 is a rough heuristic (~30% margin). Actual token counts vary by content.
if [ -f ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md ]; then
  chars=$(wc -c < ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md)
  lines=$(wc -l < ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md)
  tokens=$((chars / 4))
  echo "GLOBAL_CLAUDE_MD: $lines lines, $chars chars, ~$tokens tokens (rough estimate)"
else
  echo "GLOBAL_CLAUDE_MD: not found"
fi

1b. Project CLAUDE.md

# Note: chars/4 is a rough heuristic (~30% margin). Actual token counts vary by content.
if [ -f CLAUDE.md ]; then
  chars=$(wc -c < CLAUDE.md)
  lines=$(wc -l < CLAUDE.md)
  tokens=$((chars / 4))
  echo "PROJECT_CLAUDE_MD: $lines lines, $chars chars, ~$tokens tokens (rough estimate)"
else
  echo "PROJECT_CLAUDE_MD: not found"
fi

1c. MCP Servers from settings.json

if [ -f ~/.claude/settings.json ]; then
  python3 -c "
import json, sys
with open('$HOME/.claude/settings.json') as f:
    data = json.load(f)
servers = data.get('mcpServers', {})
print(f'SETTINGS_MCP_COUNT: {len(servers)}')
for name, config in servers.items():
    cmd = config.get('command', 'unknown')
    print(f'  MCP: {name} ({cmd})')
" 2>/dev/null || echo "SETTINGS_MCP: parse error"
fi

1d. MCP Servers from .claude.json (project or home)

for f in ~/.claude.json .claude.json; do
  if [ -f "$f" ]; then
    python3 -c "
import json
with open('$f') as fh:
    data = json.load(fh)
servers = data.get('mcpServers', {})
if servers:
    print(f'FILE: $f — {len(servers)} MCP servers')
    for name in servers:
        print(f'  MCP: {name}')
" 2>/dev/null
  fi
done

1e. Hooks overhead

if [ -f ~/.claude/settings.json ]; then
  python3 -c "
import json
with open('$HOME/.claude/settings.json') as f:
    data = json.load(f)
hooks = data.get('hooks', {})
count = sum(len(v) if isinstance(v, list) else 1 for v in hooks.values())
print(f'HOOKS: {count} hook(s) configured')
for event, items in hooks.items():
    if isinstance(items, list):
        for item in items:
            print(f'  {event}: {item.get(\"matcher\", \"*\")}')
    else:
        print(f'  {event}: {items}')
" 2>/dev/null || echo "HOOKS: parse error"
fi

1f. Plugins

if [ -f ~/.claude/settings.json ]; then
  python3 -c "
import json
with open('$HOME/.claude/settings.json') as f:
    data = json.load(f)
plugins = data.get('enabledPlugins', {})
# Handle both dict schema ({name: bool}) and list schema ([name, ...])
if isinstance(plugins, dict):
    active = [k for k, v in plugins.items() if v]
elif isinstance(plugins, list):
    active = list(plugins)