tech-debt

Identify, categorize, and prioritize technical debt. Trigger with "tech debt", "technical debt audit", "what should we refactor", "code health", or when the user asks about code quality, refactoring priorities, or maintenance backlog.

10,671 stars

Best use case

tech-debt is best used when you need a repeatable AI agent workflow instead of a one-off prompt.

Identify, categorize, and prioritize technical debt. Trigger with "tech debt", "technical debt audit", "what should we refactor", "code health", or when the user asks about code quality, refactoring priorities, or maintenance backlog.

Teams using tech-debt should expect a more consistent output, faster repeated execution, less prompt rewriting.

When to use this skill

  • You want a reusable workflow that can be run more than once with consistent structure.

When not to use this skill

  • You only need a quick one-off answer and do not need a reusable workflow.
  • You cannot install or maintain the underlying files, dependencies, or repository context.

Installation

Claude Code / Cursor / Codex

$curl -o ~/.claude/skills/tech-debt/SKILL.md --create-dirs "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins/main/engineering/skills/tech-debt/SKILL.md"

Manual Installation

  1. Download SKILL.md from GitHub
  2. Place it in .claude/skills/tech-debt/SKILL.md inside your project
  3. Restart your AI agent — it will auto-discover the skill

How tech-debt Compares

Feature / Agenttech-debtStandard Approach
Platform SupportNot specifiedLimited / Varies
Context Awareness High Baseline
Installation ComplexityUnknownN/A

Frequently Asked Questions

What does this skill do?

Identify, categorize, and prioritize technical debt. Trigger with "tech debt", "technical debt audit", "what should we refactor", "code health", or when the user asks about code quality, refactoring priorities, or maintenance backlog.

Where can I find the source code?

You can find the source code on GitHub using the link provided at the top of the page.

Related Guides

SKILL.md Source

# Tech Debt Management

Systematically identify, categorize, and prioritize technical debt.

## 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 Framework

Score each item on:
- **Impact**: How much does it slow the team down? (1-5)
- **Risk**: What happens if we don't fix it? (1-5)
- **Effort**: How hard is the fix? (1-5, inverted — lower effort = higher priority)

Priority = (Impact + Risk) x (6 - Effort)

## Output

Produce a prioritized list with estimated effort, business justification for each item, and a phased remediation plan that can be done alongside feature work.

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