Tech Debt

Overview

Two complementary stances on technical debt, picked apart by the router in this file:

• Mode A — Prevent: while you're making a change, rework it toward the intended end state. Delete the dead compatibility path instead of preserving it.
• Mode B — Triage: while you're assessing existing code, categorize, score, and prioritize the debt into a remediation plan.

They run at different points in a debt's lifecycle: prevent when writing, triage when planning. Triage output feeds back into prevent, one item at a time.

When to use

Use Mode A when:

• You are implementing, finishing, or reviewing a feature / fix / refactor and the user wants the change clean.
• You're about to keep a fallback, alias, mode flag, or wrapper "just in case" — check it has a caller first.
• The user says "do this properly", "no bandaids", "zero tech debt", or "don't leave a mess".

Use Mode B when:

• The user asks for a tech-debt audit, code-health review, or "what should we refactor?"
• The user wants to prioritize a maintenance / refactor backlog or roadmap.
• Debt has accumulated and nobody is sure what to fix first.

When NOT to use:

• A single obvious local fix with no structural angle — just fix it; don't invoke a debt framework.
• Style/formatting nits — point them at the linter/formatter, not here.
• Greenfield where the intended end state is genuinely unknown (Mode A can't target what isn't defined yet).

How this skill works — router

This skill is a ROUTER. This file stays a thin orchestrator. It picks exactly one mode (or the chain A→B→A), then you load the matching references/*.md and follow it. The two reference docs hold the actual steps, rules, and examples.

Never inline a reference doc's body. If a branch is more than a 2–3 line summary, it belongs in . The decision of branch to take stays here.