About tech-debt
tech-debt is a skill for identifying, categorizing, and prioritizing technical debt. It is aimed at teams planning codebase and infrastructure improvements, using impact, risk, and effort scores to produce a ranked list and phased remediation plan.
Key features
- 01Classify debt into six categories
- 02Score impact, risk, and effort
- 03Calculate remediation priority
- 04Estimate fix effort
- 05Create a phased remediation plan
Use cases
- 01Catalog code and architecture issues
- 02Identify test and dependency risks
- 03Assess documentation and infrastructure debt
- 04Plan fixes alongside feature work
Install
Copy the command and run it in a terminal.
$
npx skills add https:/After installing, type/tech-debtin Claude Code to confirm it loaded.
Details
From the project READMETech 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| Dependency debt | Outdated libraries, unmaintained dependencies | Security vulns |
| Documentation debt | Missing runbooks, outdated READMEs, tribal knowledge | Onboarding pain |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.
Comments
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