Inline Class

Removes smells

Symptom

A class with too few responsibilities for its own file; the agent loads the class to reason about behavior that would naturally live with the absorber.

Goal

The class folds into its primary collaborator; the agent loads one file for what was two.

Before the refactoring

class TrackingInformation {
  shippingCompany;
  trackingNumber;
  display() { return `${this.shippingCompany}: ${this.trackingNumber}`; }
}
class Shipment { tracking; }

After the refactoring

class Shipment {
  shippingCompany;
  trackingNumber;
  display() { return `${this.shippingCompany}: ${this.trackingNumber}`; }
}

Example source: Illustrative example written for this site, not a quotation from any source.

Pressure

Every reference site costs a file-jump the agent must pay; the indirection is overhead for trivial behavior.

Tradeoff

If the absorber is already large, inlining pushes it past its complexity budget — the agent now loads a god-class to reason about what was previously separated.

Relief

Fewer files; shorter call paths; the absorber's coherence improves when it owns the methods it was orchestrating.

Trap

Inlining into an already-large class creates a worse Large Class smell — the agent must reason about a god-class instead of two focused ones.