| name | improve-codebase-architecture |
| description | Find deepening opportunities in a codebase, informed by the project architecture map, glossary, constraints, and decisions in docs/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 project architecture docs first. Start with CONTEXT.md when it exists; treat it as a map. Then read the project glossary (docs/glossary.md when present, otherwise the vocabulary section in CONTEXT.md), architecture constraints (docs/architecture/constraints.md when present), relevant area docs such as docs/transports/*.md, and ADRs in the area you're touching.
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 as an HTML report
If the project contains skills/show-architecture-report/SKILL.md, use it to publish and show the report.
If no project delivery skill exists, write the report to <tmpdir>/architecture-review-<timestamp>.html, open it locally, and tell the user the absolute path.
The report uses Tailwind via CDN for layout and styling, and Mermaid via CDN for diagrams where a graph/flow/sequence reliably communicates the structure. Mix Mermaid with hand-crafted CSS/SVG visuals — use Mermaid when relationships are graph-shaped (call graphs, dependencies, sequences), and hand-built divs/SVG when you want something more editorial (mass diagrams, cross-sections, collapse animations). Each candidate gets a before/after visualisation. Be visual.
For each candidate, the same template as before, but rendered as a card:
- 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 how tests would improve
- Before / After diagram — side-by-side, custom-drawn, illustrating the shallowness and the deepening
- Recommendation strength — one of
Strong, Worth exploring, Speculative, rendered as a badge
End the report with a Top recommendation section: which candidate you'd tackle first and why.
Use the project glossary vocabulary for the domain, and LANGUAGE.md vocabulary for the architecture. Prefer docs/glossary.md; fall back to CONTEXT.md only when no glossary exists. If the project 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 in the card (e.g. a warning callout: "contradicts ADR-0007 — but worth reopening because…"). Don't list every theoretical refactor an ADR forbids.
See HTML-REPORT.md for the full HTML scaffold, diagram patterns, and styling guidance.
Do NOT propose interfaces yet. After the file is written, 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 or sharpening an app-wide concept? Add or update the term in
docs/glossary.md when present; otherwise update CONTEXT.md. Keep CONTEXT.md as a map when the project has split docs.
- Naming or sharpening a concrete transport/provider concept? Update the relevant area doc, such as
docs/transports/<transport>.md, instead of promoting it to the app-wide glossary.
- Discovering a cross-cutting rule? Update
docs/architecture/constraints.md when present; otherwise record it in CONTEXT.md.
- 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.
- Want to explore alternative interfaces for the deepened module? See INTERFACE-DESIGN.md.
