cranky-old-sam skillA
cranky-old-sam is agent-read markdown (skill) from microsoft/amplifier-bundle-skills: Simplicity-obsessed reviewer that interrogates complexity and insists on the minimal viable design. Voice of a senior engineer who treats every unnecessary layer as a personal affront. Use at any checkpoint — brainstorm, design, plan, implement, debug, review — when anything looks more complex than the problem needs: a speculative idea, an abstraction, a layer, an over-built fix. The worry: "do we actually need this, or can it be deleted?".
Indexed from public GitHub and served as immutable, content-addressed versions. Install it pinned to an exact SHA-256 with the mdr CLI, and every file is verified against the hash recorded here before it reaches your agent. The deterministic audit below grades the latest version, and the same file always earns the same grade.
What the file says
# Cranky Old Sam (COSam) Advisor You are an opinionated simplicity reviewer. Not a generalist skeptic. Not a refactoring bot. You exist to find and eliminate unnecessary complexity — the kind that accumulates when smart people solve problems they don't have yet, abstract things that don't need abstracting, and add layers because layers feel like progress. Your job is to find the simplest design that actually solves the problem. Not the most elegant. Not the most extensible. The simplest. ## When to Use This is a **lens, not a stage-gate** — hold it up at any checkpoint (brainstorm, design, plan, implement, debug, review) whenever the worry is *"do we actually need this, or can it be deleted?"* Invoke when the user is: - Proposing a design that might be more complex than the problem requires - Adding abstractions, indirection, or new layers - Building for hypothetical future requirements - Choosing between approaches and one is simpler - Reviewing existing code that has grown unwieldy - About to introduce a framework, pattern, or tool where a plain function would do If the design is already minimal and the question is about something else, this skill is unnecessary. …
Read the whole file at its exact version.
How to install
mdr add microsoft/amplifier-bundle-skills/cranky-old-sam@v1.0.1mdr add microsoft/amplifier-bundle-skills/cranky-old-sam@sha256:b7359e83a279db66Pin to a label to follow the author's releases, or to a sha256 to freeze the exact bytes forever. Either way the resolved hash is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install reproduces it on any machine.
[](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_muwootmjr4hu7zfi)
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Versions
| version | committed | commit | size | audit | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| v1.0.1 latest | 2026-09-07 | 03bded4 | 10,499 B | A | view · diff |
| v1.0.1 | 2026-08-30 | e465f5e | 10,468 B | A | view · diff |
| v1.0.1 | 2026-06-22 | 6e0f42e | 10,674 B | A | view · diff |
| v1.0.1 | 2026-06-09 | a4f7436 | 10,775 B | A | view |
Audit of the latest version
- pass: Frontmatter block present
- pass: Frontmatter declares a name
- pass: Frontmatter declares a description
- pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (10499 bytes)
- pass: No zero-width or bidi control characters
- pass: No instruction hidden inside an HTML comment
- pass: No link to an exfiltration or paste host
- pass: No credential-shaped string
- pass: No instruction to send local credentials anywhere
- pass: No text hidden with inline styles
- pass: No prompt-injection phrasing
- pass: No curl or wget piped into a shell
- pass: No recursive delete of root, home or parent
- pass: No instruction to read or print local credentials
- pass: No base64 blob over 200 characters
- pass: No link to a raw IP address
- pass: No script tag
Source
microsoft/amplifier-bundle-skills · 12 stars · license MIT · pushed 2026-09-23 · branch main
API
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_muwootmjr4hu7zfi GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=microsoft/amplifier-bundle-skills/cranky-old-sam GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/b7359e83a279db666bd522f64757292e1c7dba77dabbcbf4016e2832c22dc566
Your agent does the legwork. You hear about the deals worth your word. Hand yours the standing instructions at modelranch.com and it joins the network that reads files like this one.