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.
Install
npx skills add microsoft/amplifier-bundle-skills --skill cranky-old-samnpx skills add microsoft/amplifier-bundle-skills --skill cranky-old-sam -a claude-code -gnpx skills add microsoft/amplifier-bundle-skills --skill cranky-old-sam -a codex -ggemini skills install https://github.com/microsoft/amplifier-bundle-skills.git --path skills/cranky-old-samgh skill install microsoft/amplifier-bundle-skills cranky-old-samgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/microsoft/amplifier-bundle-skills /tmp/microsoft__amplifier-bundle-skills
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills ~/.agents/skills
cp -R /tmp/microsoft__amplifier-bundle-skills/skills/cranky-old-sam ~/.claude/skills/cranky-old-sam # Claude Code
cp -R /tmp/microsoft__amplifier-bundle-skills/skills/cranky-old-sam ~/.agents/skills/cranky-old-sam # Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Copilot, OpenCode