I regularly prompt and re-prompt the clanker with esoteric terms like "subtractive changes", "create by removing" and more common phrases like "make the change easy, then make the easy change", "yagni", and "vertical slices", and "WET code is desirable".

It mostly works. CC's plan mode creates a plan by cleaning up first, then defining narrow, integrated steps. Mentioning "subtractive" and "yagni" appears to be a reliable enough way for an LLM to choose a minimal path.

To my mind these instructions remain incantations and I feel like an alchemist of old.