| name | tech-debt |
| description | Identify, categorize, and prioritize technical debt. Use for "tech debt audit", "what should we refactor", "code health", or refactoring priorities. Do NOT use for code review (code-review), architecture decisions (adr), or bug investigation (debug).
|
| license | MIT |
| allowed-tools | Read Glob Grep |
| argument-hint | [scope or area] |
| metadata | {"author":"Carinya Parc","version":"0.1.0","owner":"web-development","review_cadence":"quarterly","work_shape":"review-and-gate","output_class":"decision-support"} |
Tech debt
Systematically identify, categorize, and prioritize technical debt. Pass scope
(service, module, epic) after the skill name when provided; otherwise scan the
area the user describes.
Categories
| Type | Examples | Risk |
|---|
| Code debt | Duplicated logic, poor abstractions, magic numbers | Bugs, slow development |
| Architecture debt | Monolith that should be split, wrong data store | Scaling limits |
| Test debt | Low coverage, flaky tests, missing integration tests | Regressions ship |
| Dependency debt | Outdated libraries, unmaintained dependencies | Security vulns |
| Documentation debt | Missing runbooks, outdated READMEs, tribal knowledge | Onboarding pain |
| Infrastructure debt | Manual deploys, no monitoring, no IaC | Incidents, slow recovery |
Prioritization
Score each item:
- Impact (1–5) — how much it slows the team
- Risk (1–5) — cost of not fixing
- Effort (1–5) — lower effort → higher priority
Priority = (Impact + Risk) × (6 − Effort)
Steps
- Confirm scope (repo area, service, or epic) or default to the user's described area.
- Scan for debt across the categories above.
- Score and rank items.
- Produce a prioritized list with estimated effort, business justification, and a
phased remediation plan that can run alongside feature work.
Output format
Prioritized markdown list with: item, category, scores, justification, and suggested
phase for remediation.
