tech-debt-audit SKILL.md skillA

tech-debt-audit from yarlson/yarstack is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.

Install it, pinned

mdr add yarlson/yarstack/tech-debt-audit@git:20261017.2f2e03b

Pins git:20261017.2f2e03b in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.

Audit grade: A, 17 of 17 checks passed
Kind: SKILL.md skill
Repository: yarlson/yarstack
Path: plugins/yarstack/skills/tech-debt-audit/SKILL.md
Versions recorded: 4
Latest version: git:20261017.2f2e03b, committed Oct 17, 2026
First version recorded: Sep 25, 2026
Size: 8,341 bytes
Repository stars: 3
License: MIT

Audit a whole repository or subsystem for technical debt with at most four non-overlapping read-only subagents, lead verification, and interest-over-principal ranking, and produce an evidence-backed debt register. Use when the user wants to find, size, or prioritize existing debt across a codebase; not for reviewing one change, which belongs to code-review.

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

# Tech Debt Audit

Produce a verified, ranked debt register a team can turn into work items. Keep the audit read-only: do not edit, format, commit, push, install, upgrade, run migrations, or send repository data to external services.

## Definition

Technical debt is a set of design or implementation constructs that are expedient in the short term but make future changes more costly or impossible. Its impact is limited to internal qualities, mainly maintainability and evolvability.

- **Principal** is the effort to remove the debt. **Interest** is the extra cost the debt adds to each change that touches it: slower delivery, more defects, more risk.
- Debt in code that rarely changes charges little interest. Rank messy code that changes often above ugly code that is stable.
- A defect that produces wrong behavior today is a bug, not debt. So is an exploitable security issue. A missing feature, a style preference, or "not the latest trend" is not debt unless you can show a cost.
- Record the origin as `deliberate` only when a comment, ADR, commit message, or issue shows it. Otherwise use `inadvertent` or `unknown`.

## Budget
…

Read the whole file at its exact version.

How to install

The exact contents, by fingerprint

mdr add yarlson/yarstack/tech-debt-audit@sha256:9cbde085cf7f2ce9

The line at the top of this page pins the label git:20261017.2f2e03b, 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_rvqdbp52oyn5xtc5.svg)](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_rvqdbp52oyn5xtc5)

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

Versions

The registry has recorded 4 versions of this file, between Sep 25, 2026 and Oct 17, 2026, about one every 7 days.

version	committed	commit	size	audit
git:20261017.2f2e03b latest	2026-10-17	2f2e03b	8,341 B	A	view · diff
git:20261017.f669441	2026-10-17	f669441	8,258 B	A	view · diff
git:20260930.ca677cd	2026-09-30	ca677cd	8,183 B	A	view · diff
git:20260925.16ec622	2026-09-25	16ec622	7,320 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 (8341 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

yarlson/yarstack · 3 stars · license MIT · pushed 2026-10-19 · branch main

API

GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_rvqdbp52oyn5xtc5
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=yarlson/yarstack/tech-debt-audit
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/9cbde085cf7f2ce98e30a392acedcedf7e080d7005dbf7b4df46b22b0dd72c9e

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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