steam-backlog-enforcer/TODO-file-length-250.md

Refactor TODO — enforce the 250-line file cap

This file is a ready-to-use prompt. Paste it to Claude, or open this repo and say "do refactor_claude_todo". It is self-contained: everything needed to execute is below. Generated 2026-08-14 from a measured survey of every repo.

Goal

Every file in this repo must be at most 250 lines — source, tests, and prose (.md/.txt/.rst/.tex) alike — and must stay that way forever, enforced by a gate that fails the commit, not by a note anyone can ignore.

Why: a file that cannot be read in one piece forces re-reads and partial edits, which is the single largest avoidable cost in an LLM-assisted workflow. Aim by churn, not size alone — refactoring pays where code is read and changed often (Fowler, refactoring economic benefit).

Scope in this repo

• 55 files currently exceed 250 lines (of 114 eligible files).
• 24,887 lines sit in violation; longest file is 1076 lines.

Exempt (do NOT split these):

• generated files — *.g.dart, *.freezed.dart, *.gr.dart, **/l10n/generated/**, anything with a GENERATED header
• markup — .html, .css, .scss
• data files — .json, .yaml, .csv, wordlists and other data-ish .txt (mean line length under 25 chars)

Violations, highest ROI first

ROI = lines x commits in the last year. Work top-down; a long file nobody edits has near-zero payoff and should not be first.

lines	commits/yr	kind	file
1076	26	code	steam_backlog_enforcer/main.py
553	18	code	steam_backlog_enforcer/game_install.py
555	13	code	steam_backlog_enforcer/library_hider.py
521	13	code	steam_backlog_enforcer/scanning.py
384	16	code	steam_backlog_enforcer/hltb.py
447	12	code	steam_backlog_enforcer/tests/test_hltb.py
410	12	code	steam_backlog_enforcer/_enforce_loop.py
444	11	code	steam_backlog_enforcer/tests/test_scanning.py
476	10	code	steam_backlog_enforcer/tests/test_main_part2.py
1072	4	code	steam_backlog_enforcer/tests/test_stats.py
592	7	code	steam_backlog_enforcer/tests/test_hltb_detail.py
393	10	code	steam_backlog_enforcer/tests/test_enforce_loop.py
491	7	code	steam_backlog_enforcer/tests/test_main.py
333	10	code	steam_backlog_enforcer/_cmd_done.py
409	8	code	steam_backlog_enforcer/tests/test_hltb_part2.py

(40 further files over 250 lines not listed — re-run the survey for the full set.)

How to split

• Python — extract cohesive helpers into sibling modules; keep the public API and imports stable.
• Shell — split into lib/*.sh sourced by a thin entry script. Keep set -euo pipefail in each.
• Dart / TypeScript — extract widgets/components into their own files.
• Tests — split by test-group into sibling files (foo.test.ts -> foo.parsing.test.ts, foo.render.test.ts). Coverage must not drop.
• Docs — split into topic files under docs/ with an index. For an oversized CLAUDE.md, move detail into referenced docs so the always-loaded part shrinks.

Do not game the cap: no one-lining, no deleting tests, no moving code into an exempt extension, no # noqa-style suppressions.

Make it permanent (required — this is the point)

A refactor without a gate silently regrows. Before this task is done:

1. Wire the shared gate ~/utils/scripts/check_file_length.sh into this repo's .pre-commit-config.yaml as a local hook. If the repo has no pre-commit config, add a minimal one.
2. The hook checks files in the commit (not the whole tree), so unrelated commits never break, and it fails — exit 1, not a warning.
3. No baseline file and no allowlist. Those are suppressions.
4. If this repo has CI (.github/workflows), add the same check there so it also fails on push.

Done condition

• bash ~/utils/scripts/check_file_length.sh --all from this repo root exits 0.
• The repo's own test suite and coverage bar are still green.
• pre-commit run --files <changed files> passes.
• A deliberately over-250-line test file, staged, makes git commit fail.
• For a deployed daemon/app: the entry point still actually runs.

Verify

Run the suite, then run the enforcer entry point. Do NOT restart the systemd unit or Steam while a game is running — ask first.

REMOVE ME AFTER FINISH