Effect Deslopify (Idiomatic Remediation)

Systematic audit and remediation of Effect-TS code to library-grade idiomatic standards.

Companion skills (install separately): effectts (pattern reference), sdd (methodology). These provide the pattern reference and methodology this skill orchestrates.

Target

Apply to any Effect-TS codebase, package, or file path.

Mission

• De-slopify the target
• Make code library-grade idiomatic Effect
• Keep behavior stable unless fixing a confirmed bug

Workflow

1. Audit (SDD Phases 1-4)

Run SDD audit mode across phases 1-4 on the target.

2. Gap Analysis

Produce a gap list covering:

• Schema modeling (bare brands, missing constraints, manual mappers)
• Service boundaries (wrong abstraction level, god services)
• Error channels (silent swallowing, wrong error types)
• Layer wiring (missing deps, provide vs provideMerge)
• Purity violations (impure ops outside Effect tracking)
• Exhaustiveness (switch instead of Match.exhaustive)
• Test coverage (missing property tests, bun scripts)

3. Decide: Remediate or Rewrite

For each gap:

• Remediate if architecture is sound and gaps are localized
• Rewrite only if architecture is unsalvageable (majority of phases FAIL)

4. Implement Fixes

Implement highest-impact fixes. Priority order:

1. Bugs (incorrect behavior, discarded Effect values)
2. Schema constraints (bare brands, missing validation)
3. Error modeling (Data.TaggedError -> Schema.TaggedError)
4. Service patterns (Effect.fn, annotateLogs)
5. Test gaps (property tests, vitest conversion)

5. Regression Tests

Add/keep regression tests for bug fixes (TDD: failing test first, then fix).

6. Verify Gates

Run all applicable gates:

• Your project's typecheck command (e.g. npx tsc --noEmit or pnpm check)
• npx effect-language-service quickfixes --project tsconfig.json (if configured)
• Relevant test suites

Idiomatic Constraints

These are non-negotiable for library-grade Effect code:

| Constraint | Why | |-----------|-----| | No as any | Type escapes hide real errors | | No silent catchAll error swallowing | Errors must be logged or propagated | | No raw fetch when typed client exists | Duplicating URLs loses type safety | | No ad-hoc mutable state in Effect paths | Use Ref for tracked state | | Impure ops wrapped in Effect.sync / Effect APIs | Effect must track all side effects | | Match.exhaustive not switch | Compile-time case coverage | | Errors modeled explicitly | Schema.TaggedError with typed channels | | Effect.fn on all service methods | Automatic tracing spans | | Effect.annotateLogs per service module | Structured observability | | yield* new TaggedError() in generators | Not Effect.fail(new TaggedError()) |

Before / After Examples

Bare Brand -> Constrained Brand

// BEFORE (sloppy): accepts empty strings, whitespace, anything
const UserId = Schema.String.pipe(Schema.brand("UserId"))

// AFTER (idiomatic): enforces domain invariants
const UserId = Schema.NonEmptyString.pipe(
  Schema.pattern(/^usr_[a-z0-9]+$/),
  Schema.brand("UserId")
)

Manual Tracing -> Effect.fn

// BEFORE (sloppy): manual withSpan, no argument capture
findById: (id: UserId) =>
  sql`SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = ${id}`.pipe(
    Effect.flatMap(rows => decode(rows[0])),
    Effect.withSpan("UserRepo.findById"),
  ),

// AFTER (idiomatic): Effect.fn captures args + creates span
findById: Effect.fn("UserRepo.findById")(function*(id: UserId) {
  const rows = yield* sql`SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = ${id}`
  if (rows.length === 0) return yield* new UserNotFound({ userId: id })
  return yield* Schema.decodeUnknown(User)(rows[0])
}),

Silent Error Swallowing -> Explicit Handling

// BEFORE (sloppy): error silently disappears
const result = yield* dangerousOp.pipe(
  Effect.catchAll(() => Effect.succeed(fallback))
)

// AFTER (idiomatic): error logged before fallback
const result = yield* dangerousOp.pipe(
  Effect.tapError((e) => Effect.logWarning("Falling back", { error: e })),
  Effect.catchAll(() => Effect.succeed(fallback))
)

Output

After running deslopify, report:

• Changed files (with summary of what changed)
• Anti-patterns removed (count by category)
• Test/gate results (pass/fail)
• Residual risks + follow-ups (anything not fixed in this pass)