| name | improve-codebase-architecture |
| description | Find deepening opportunities in a codebase, informed by the domain language in product/glossary.md and the decisions in product/architecture/adr/. Use when the user wants to improve architecture, find refactoring opportunities, consolidate tightly-coupled modules, or make a codebase more testable and AI-navigable. |
Improve Codebase Architecture
Surface architectural friction and propose deepening opportunities — refactors that turn shallow modules into deep ones. The aim is testability and AI-navigability.
Glossary
Use these terms exactly in every suggestion. Consistent language is the point — don't drift into "component," "service," "API," or "boundary." Full definitions in LANGUAGE.md.
- Module — anything with an interface and an implementation (function, class, package, slice).
- Interface — everything a caller must know to use the module: types, invariants, error modes, ordering, config. Not just the type signature.
- Implementation — the code inside.
- Depth — leverage at the interface: a lot of behaviour behind a small interface. Deep = high leverage. Shallow = interface nearly as complex as the implementation.
- Seam — where an interface lives; a place behaviour can be altered without editing in place. (Use this, not "boundary.")
- Adapter — a concrete thing satisfying an interface at a seam.
- Leverage — what callers get from depth.
- Locality — what maintainers get from depth: change, bugs, knowledge concentrated in one place.
Key principles (see LANGUAGE.md for the full list):
- Deletion test: imagine deleting the module. If complexity vanishes, it was a pass-through. If complexity reappears across N callers, it was earning its keep.
- The interface is the test surface.
- One adapter = hypothetical seam. Two adapters = real seam.
This skill is informed by the project's domain model. The domain language gives names to good seams; ADRs record decisions the skill should not re-litigate.
Process
1. Explore
Read the project's domain glossary and any ADRs in the area you're touching first.
Then use the Agent tool with subagent_type=Explore to walk the codebase. Don't follow rigid heuristics — explore organically and note where you experience friction:
- Where does understanding one concept require bouncing between many small modules?
- Where are modules shallow — interface nearly as complex as the implementation?
- Where have pure functions been extracted just for testability, but the real bugs hide in how they're called (no locality)?
- Where do tightly-coupled modules leak across their seams?
- Which parts of the codebase are untested, or hard to test through their current interface?
Apply the deletion test to anything you suspect is shallow: would deleting it concentrate complexity, or just move it? A "yes, concentrates" is the signal you want.
2. Present candidates
Present a numbered list of deepening opportunities. For each candidate:
- Files — which files/modules are involved
- Problem — why the current architecture is causing friction
- Solution — plain English description of what would change
- Benefits — explained in terms of locality and leverage, and also in how tests would improve
Use product/glossary.md vocabulary for the domain, and LANGUAGE.md vocabulary for the architecture. If the glossary defines "Order," talk about "the Order intake module" — not "the FooBarHandler," and not "the Order service."
ADR conflicts: if a candidate contradicts an existing ADR, only surface it when the friction is real enough to warrant revisiting the ADR. Mark it clearly (e.g. "contradicts ADR-0007 — but worth reopening because…"). Don't list every theoretical refactor an ADR forbids.
Do NOT propose interfaces yet. Ask the user: "Which of these would you like to explore?"
3. Grilling loop
Once the user picks a candidate, drop into a grilling conversation. Walk the design tree with them — constraints, dependencies, the shape of the deepened module, what sits behind the seam, what tests survive.
Side effects happen inline as decisions crystallize:
- Naming a deepened module after a concept not in
product/glossary.md? Add the term to product/glossary.md — same discipline as /grill-with-docs (see GLOSSARY-FORMAT.md).
- Sharpening a fuzzy term during the conversation? Update
product/glossary.md right there.
- User rejects the candidate with a load-bearing reason? Offer an ADR, framed as: "Want me to record this as an ADR so future architecture reviews don't re-suggest it?" Only offer when the reason would actually be needed by a future explorer to avoid re-suggesting the same thing — skip ephemeral reasons ("not worth it right now") and self-evident ones. See ADR-FORMAT.md. ADRs go in
product/architecture/adr/.
- Want to explore alternative interfaces for the deepened module? See INTERFACE-DESIGN.md.
