tech-debt SKILL.md skillA

tech-debt from qa-aman/claude-skills is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.

Install it, pinned

mdr add qa-aman/claude-skills/tech-debt@git:20260303.09b1726

Pins git:20260303.09b1726 in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.

Audit grade: A, 17 of 17 checks passed
Kind: SKILL.md skill
Repository: qa-aman/claude-skills
Path: skills/by-role/engineer/tech-debt/SKILL.md
Versions recorded: 1
Latest version: git:20260303.09b1726, committed Mar 3, 2026
Size: 4,209 bytes
Repository stars: 21
License: MIT

Document and prioritize technical debt. Use when the user says "tech debt", "legacy code", "this code is a mess", "refactoring plan", "we need to clean this up", "paying down debt", "this is hard to change", "how do we fix this codebase", or has code that's difficult to understand or modify - even if they don't explicitly say "technical debt".

Collected from public GitHub. Every version is saved exactly as it was and never changes. Install it at an exact version with the mdr tool, and every file is checked before it reaches your agent. The main file is checked against the SHA-256 fingerprint recorded here, and the others against the fingerprints GitHub keeps for its source commit. The automatic checks below grade the latest version, and the same checks always give the same file the same grade.

What the file says

## Overview

Based on **"Working Effectively with Legacy Code"** by Michael Feathers. Feathers' definition: legacy code is code without tests. His central technique: find the "seams" - places where you can insert test coverage without changing the code under test. Once a seam has test coverage, you can safely refactor. The discipline: never refactor without a safety net. Never add features to untested code without first covering it.

## Workflow

### Step 1: Define the debt
Before prioritizing, describe the debt specifically:

```
Debt item: [name]
Location: [file:line or module]
What it is: [one sentence description]
Why it's a problem: [what it makes harder]
Symptom: [what developers experience because of it]
```

Vague debt ("the codebase is messy") can't be prioritized. Specific debt can.

### Step 2: Classify the debt type
| Type | Description | Urgency |
|------|-------------|---------|
| **Reckless/Deliberate** | Shortcuts taken knowingly ("we'll fix it later") | High |
| **Reckless/Inadvertent** | Mistakes made without knowing better | High |
| **Prudent/Deliberate** | Conscious tradeoff: ship now, fix later | Medium |
…

Read the whole file at its exact version.

How to install

The exact contents, by fingerprint

mdr add qa-aman/claude-skills/tech-debt@sha256:2442939464563950

The line at the top of this page pins the label git:20260303.09b1726, which is what most people want. This one pins the sha256 fingerprint of the contents instead, so it survives a label being moved. Either way the exact version is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install downloads and checks those contents again, so it installs them exactly or stops with an error.

Badge

[![mdr](https://markdownregistry.com/badge/art_2rbih4p6ujqph2yo.svg)](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_2rbih4p6ujqph2yo)

1 badge image fetches in 30 days. What the badge shows.

Versions

The registry has recorded 1 version of this file, committed on Mar 3, 2026.

version	committed	commit	size	audit
git:20260303.09b1726 latest	2026-03-03	09b1726	4,209 B	A	view

Audit of the latest version

A 17 of 17 checks passed. Fixed automatic checks with no AI involved, so the same checks give the same answer every run.

pass: Frontmatter block present
pass: Frontmatter declares a name
pass: Frontmatter declares a description
pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (4209 bytes)
pass: No zero-width or bidi control characters
pass: No instruction hidden inside an HTML comment
pass: No link to an exfiltration or paste host
pass: No credential-shaped string
pass: No instruction to send local credentials anywhere
pass: No text hidden with inline styles
pass: No prompt-injection phrasing
pass: No curl or wget piped into a shell
pass: No recursive delete of root, home or parent
pass: No instruction to read or print local credentials
pass: No base64 blob over 200 characters
pass: No link to a raw IP address
pass: No script tag

Source

GitHub

qa-aman/claude-skills · 21 stars · license MIT · pushed 2026-10-19 · branch main

API

GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_2rbih4p6ujqph2yo
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=qa-aman/claude-skills/tech-debt
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/24429394645639508eb3b02b76e43e106c16def1c4f7d290332490a500dde46e

Your AI assistant does the legwork. You hear about the deals worth your word. Hand yours the standing instructions at modelranch.com and it joins the network that reads files like this one.

Guides: the SKILL.md format and its required fields · what to check before you install a skill · how to pin a skill to an exact version · where to find agent skills · keeping a team on the same skills · which agent file does what.

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