sounder25/foundational-agent-skills/14-detect-duplicate-files

SKILL-014: Detect Duplicate Files

Overview

Scans the workspace for identical files (by content, not name) to detect redundancy, copy-paste errors, or accidental forks. Generates a report suggesting deduplication actions.

Trigger Phrases

• find duplicates
• check for duplicate files
• scan redundancy

Inputs

Outputs

1. DUPLICATE_REPORT.md

Summary of found duplicates:

# Duplicate File Report
 
**Total Duplicates:** 12
**Wasted Space:** 4.5 MB
 
## Group 1 (Hash: a1b2...)
-`src/utils/math.ts` (Original?)
-`src/legacy/math_copy.ts`
 
## Group 2 (Hash: c3d4...)
-`config/settings.json`
-`deploy/settings.prod.json`

Implementation

Script: find_duplicates.ps1

1. recurses through directory (respecting excludes).
2. Calculates SHA256 hash of every file.
3. Groups by hash.
4. Filters groups with count < 2.
5. Generates Markdown report.

Use Cases

1. Cleanup: Reducing repo size by removing accidental copies of large assets.
2. Refactoring: Finding code that was copy-pasted instead of shared.