// Track

Repo Hygiene & Cost Discipline

The Invisible Tax on AI Development

The compound cost of neglected repos: bloated CLAUDE.md files burning tokens on every agent session, stub test files gaming quality gates, and CI jobs wasting minutes on every PR. Six lessons covering the 200-line rule, stub detection, CI cost engineering, and the systematic audit workflow — taught through real production examples.

Recommended: Complete Discipline and Advanced Claude Code first

6 lessons~63 min total

Lessons are shown in recommended order. Complete them in sequence for the best experience — or jump to any lesson.

Lesson 162·10 min read

The Invisible Tax

Every bloated CLAUDE.md, every stub test, every uncached CI run charges a tax you never see on a dashboard. This lesson names the tax and shows you exactly what it costs.

Lesson 163·11 min read

The 200-Line Rule

CLAUDE.md is supposed to be a cognitive map for your agent. Most are archaeological sites — layers of decisions no one reviewed. The 200-line rule is the enforcement mechanism that keeps it a map and not a museum.

Lesson 164·10 min read

Quality Gate Theater

CI says 92% coverage. The PR passes. No one questions it. The 92% is built on stub files with zero real test functions. This lesson shows you how to find them, what to do with them, and why deleting them is sometimes the right call.

Lesson 165·10 min read

CI Cost Engineering

Every CI run costs time and money. Most teams burn 100-200 minutes per week on jobs that should never have triggered. Three patterns fix 80% of the waste in under an hour.

Lesson 166·11 min read

The Audit Workflow

Most teams don't have a maintenance process — they have maintenance intent. 'We should clean that up sometime' is not a process, it's a wishlist. This is the five-phase workflow that converts intent into execution.

Lesson 167·11 min read

Maintenance as a Skill

The difference between teams that maintain clean repos and teams that don't isn't discipline or intelligence. It's systematization. Clean repos stay clean because the process is automated, not because developers remember to clean.