Prompt rewriter

Skill m2ai-mcp-servers/claude-skills/skills/prompt-rewriter

Rewrite system prompts to strip compensating complexity and produce clean outcome-based prompts. Takes audit output (from compensating-complexity-auditor or manual analysis) and produces a four-component prompt — outcome spec, constraints, tools, coordination pattern. Use when modernizing prompts after a model upgrade, simplifying over-engineered system prompts, or converting procedural instructions to outcome-based ones. Trigger on "rewrite prompt", "simplify prompt", "strip scaffolding", "outcome-based prompt", "modernize prompt".From its SKILL.md

Install

npx -y skills add m2ai-mcp-servers/claude-skills --skill prompt-rewriter

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SKILL.md

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Outcome-Based Prompt Rewriter

Transform scaffolding-heavy system prompts into clean, outcome-based prompts that work with capable models.

Phase 1: Input

Accept ONE of:

Raw audit output from the compensating-complexity-auditor skill (preferred)
A system prompt the user wants rewritten (will do a quick classification pass first)
A file path to a system prompt or CLAUDE.md

If no audit exists, do a fast classification pass (outcome/constraint/scaffolding/duct-tape) before rewriting.

Phase 2: Extract Essential Intent

From the classified components, extract:

Outcomes — What must the system achieve? (strip all "how")
Hard constraints — Business rules, safety, compliance, quality thresholds
Available tools — What tools/APIs/resources does the system have access to?
Coordination pattern — If multi-agent: who talks to whom, what are handoff conditions?

Discard:

Step-by-step procedures (let the model figure out "how")
Format micromanagement (unless format IS the business requirement)
Retry/fallback logic for known model weaknesses
Few-shot examples that teach capabilities the model already has

Phase 3: Rewrite

Produce a clean prompt with exactly four sections:

## Outcome
[What this system must achieve — measurable, specific]

## Constraints
[Hard rules that cannot be violated — business, safety, quality]

## Tools
[Available tools and when to use them — not how to use them]

## Coordination
[Multi-agent handoffs, escalation conditions — if applicable]

Rules for the rewrite:

No imperative procedures ("First do X, then do Y")
No "you are a..." role-play preambles unless they genuinely change behavior
Constraints only include things that are NOT obvious to a capable model
Tool descriptions say WHAT the tool does, not step-by-step usage
Total length should be 30-60% of the original (if it's longer, you added complexity)

Phase 4: Diff + Risk Assessment

Show a before/after comparison:

What was kept (and why)
What was deleted (and why)
What was reworded (and what changed)
Risk items: anything deleted that MIGHT still be needed — flag these as "test before deploying"

Output a length comparison: original line count vs. rewritten line count, with percentage reduction.

Verification

Rewritten prompt must be shorter than the original
All outcome logic from the original must be preserved
All hard constraints must be preserved
No procedural scaffolding in the output
Risk items explicitly flagged for testing

Source

Nate's Newsletter (2026-04-01): Outcome-based prompt rewriting as the second step of the compensating complexity removal pipeline. Pairs with compensating-complexity-auditor.