Claude Cleaned My Messy Repo Without Me Explaining Everything

I dropped a 400-line file into Claude with one instruction: 'flag anything that breaks our style rule about early returns.' It found nine, explained each, and proposed the fix in place.

The trick is narrow scope. 'Make this better' gets a rewrite you didn't ask for. 'Find X and only X' gets a review you can trust and merge.

I accepted seven fixes, rejected two it misread, and learned a pattern I'd been repeating. That's the real win -- the review taught me, not just the code.

Use Claude as a ruthless reviewer with a checklist, never as a freehand rewriter. You keep the decisions; it keeps the eyes on.