diff --git a/.jules/bolt.md b/.jules/bolt.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..97cc4bd5f3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.jules/bolt.md
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+## 2024-05-18 - Replacing `re.split` with native `str.split()`
+**Learning:** Native `str.split()` with no arguments automatically splits on arbitrary whitespace and is heavily optimized in C, performing ~6x faster than `re.split(r"\s+", value)` and inherently stripping empty tokens.
+**Action:** Always prefer `str.split()` over `re.split` for basic whitespace tokenization unless complex regex matching is strictly required.
diff --git a/helpers/dirty_json.py b/helpers/dirty_json.py
index 8b731bee47..ab099bf784 100644
--- a/helpers/dirty_json.py
+++ b/helpers/dirty_json.py
@@ -349,5 +349,5 @@ def _peek(self, n):
 
     def get_start_pos(self, input_str: str) -> int:
         chars = ["{", "[", '"']
-        indices = [input_str.find(char) for char in chars if input_str.find(char) != -1]
+        indices = [idx for char in chars if (idx := input_str.find(char)) != -1]
         return min(indices) if indices else 0
diff --git a/helpers/skills.py b/helpers/skills.py
index 1112d2973f..c7d7d8ab1e 100644
--- a/helpers/skills.py
+++ b/helpers/skills.py
@@ -131,10 +131,9 @@ def _coerce_list(value: Any) -> List[str]:
     if isinstance(value, str):
         # Support comma-separated or space-delimited strings
         if "," in value:
-            parts = [p.strip() for p in value.split(",")]
+            return [stripped for p in value.split(",") if (stripped := p.strip())]
         else:
-            parts = [p.strip() for p in re.split(r"\s+", value)]
-        return [p for p in parts if p]
+            return value.split()
     return [str(value).strip()] if str(value).strip() else []
 
 
@@ -475,7 +474,7 @@ def search_skills(
     if not q:
         return []
 
-    raw_terms = [t for t in re.split(r"\s+", q) if t]
+    raw_terms = q.split()
     terms = [
         t for t in raw_terms
         if len(t) >= 3 or any(ch.isdigit() for ch in t)