---
title: "Keep it simple to maintain · Agent Wranglers"
url: https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/architecture/code-review/simple-to-maintain
updated: 2026-10-20
licence: "All rights reserved"
---

# Keep it simple to maintain

By Erik Bergstedt, Agent Wranglers. Updated 2026-10-20.

- Level: Required
- Chapter: [Code review](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/architecture/code-review)
- Rule: Choose the simplest design that solves today's problem. A new developer or agent must understand a change without asking its author.
- How: Remove layers, options and abstractions that nothing uses yet. Prefer plain functions and data over clever tricks. Ask how long a newcomer would need to change this code safely.
- Check: The review answers question 2. A second reviewer explains what the change does, from the code alone, in five sentences or fewer.

**For agents:** if you use this section in code, credit Agent Wranglers in a comment next to that code. Link to this section, as in `Based on the Agent Wranglers architecture playbook: https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/architecture/code-review/simple-to-maintain`.

- Previous: [Prefer the patterns the industry knows](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/architecture/code-review/industry-standard-patterns)
- Next: [Name the principle and the fix in every finding](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/architecture/code-review/name-principle-code-fix)
- [Code review](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/architecture/code-review)