Files
holocron/plugins/bin/.apm/skills/improve-codebase-architecture/README.md
Claude Code AI - Gitea MCP 598a7c326a refactor(skills): retrofit the corpus to the ADR-0020 context contract (#129)
Retrofits all 39 skills to ADR-0020's description/body context contract, then fixes what six rounds of independent review found in that retrofit — including four ways the hot gate itself failed open.

Closes #99, #107, #108, #110, #111, #114, #115, #120.

## The retrofit (waves 1-5)

| | Start | Now |
|---|---|---|
| Description FAILs (>400 chars) | 26 | **0** |
| Body FAILs (>900 words, body-only) | 9 | **0** |
| Dangling routing targets | 2 | **0** |
| `Kyberforge.CompositionNote` | 10 | **0** |
| Preload tax | 21,005 chars | **~10,500** |

Under the 12,000-char success criterion. Per-wave detail is on #99.

## The review fixes

**The gate failed open four ways, three of them found after the retrofit shipped.** An unrecognised follower token made a dangling target vanish. A skill directory with no `SKILL.md` resolved as a valid target, so a commit could be green locally and red in a fresh clone — three existing fixtures were relying on that, one of which made the install-leak A/B pass vacuously. Then the free-standing `/name` sweep turned out to be gated on the sentence carrying a boundary marker, so route notation in any other sentence was invisible — not an ERROR, not a SUGGESTION, not an INFO — which left the documented "`/name` always blocks" promise false from a second direction. All four fixed and pinned.

**Two checks were silently not running.** `validate-provenance.sh` checks 7-8 were dead across nine skills. Waking them exposed a deeper problem: they assume `Research doc:` names a source index, but 30 of 121 entries point at topic content documents, so every new check-7 INFO was a false positive and check 8 was saved from a false-FAIL flood only by an *unannounced* skip. Checks 7/8 are now scoped to source indexes and every skip announces itself (#121).

**The retrofit's own anti-goal, four times.** ADR-0020 warns that a blunt gate gets satisfied by deleting content rather than relocating it. `diagnose` and `skill-audit` relocated prose and then read it unconditionally; `prototype` and `vale-config` deleted rules outright that survived nowhere. All four addressed.

## Verification

- `bash tests/run-tests.sh --strict` — 24 suites, 0 skipped, 0 failed
- `bash tests/run-bats.sh` — 325 tests, 0 failures
- `pre-commit run --all-files` — 17/17
- `pre-commit run --hook-stage pre-push --all-files` — 16/16, with `apm marketplace check` and `apm pack --check-clean` run against the remote, not skipped
- `scripts/skill-size-check.sh` over all 39 skills — rc 0, 0 ERROR/FAIL, SUGGESTION-only
- Preload tax measured at **10,498 chars**, max description 390 — both inside budget
- Every new test proven non-vacuous by a deliberate mutation of the behaviour it covers

**Per-commit sync, stated accurately:** the ten commits from the latest review round each pass `check-plugin-content-sync` in isolation, verified by checking each out in a detached worktree with a clean between. The earlier gitea window (`dfacf05..bedbd1d`, nine commits) does **not** — its mirror was regenerated in one batch at `bbc7300`. An earlier revision of this description claimed the property held for every commit; it does not, and a bisect through that window lands on a red commit. **Squash-merge** to collapse it, or accept that this range is not bisectable.

## Version bump

Six plugins and the catalog take a **patch**, not a minor. The branch is **89 commits — 40 `fix` / 30 `refactor` / 12 `docs` / 5 `chore` / 2 `test` — zero `feat`, zero `!`, zero `BREAKING CHANGE`** — and adds no skill, agent, command or hook. (Two earlier revisions of this section cited a stale histogram, most recently 78 commits; the figures above are measured at HEAD.) Both rules this repo ships (`forge/references/version-bump.md`, landing in this PR, and `git-commits/references/conventional-commits-spec.md`) make that a patch, and the catalog set is unchanged at 7 entries.

Not settled by that: four published files were removed from the installed tree, three moved, and `caveman` gained `disable-model-invocation`, retiring its old triggers. Under a strict reading those are major-class and currently ship under `refactor:` with no marker. Whether the deployed skill surface is a public contract is written down nowhere — worth deciding, but it outlives this PR.

## Deliberately not in scope

#112 (cherry-pick ownership, now resolved in favour of `git-commits`), #113 (`rtk git` normalisation), #116 (research fan-out), #101 (audit-skill merge), #122 (non-spec skill-root files), #123 (no PRD producer) stay open. #117 is the one worth reading: the contract's remedy is to move prose into `references/`, which is exactly where neither the size gate nor Vale looks — and the blind spot is wider than #117 currently records, since there is no root `.vale.ini` at all, so every ADR, `CONTEXT.md` and `README.md` is unlinted too.

That blind spot let this branch carry two `level: error` `Kyberforge.SentenceOpenerThereIs` violations into `references/` files it created — `provider-adapter-author/references/provider-matrix.md:31` and `agent-audit/references/finding-criteria.md:95`. Both are reworded in `afadaae`, confirmed by routing each file through the audit's own `vale-wrap.sh` (1 error each before, 0 after). Five further occurrences sit in `references/` files already on `main`; those are the pre-existing corpus and stay with #117, which is the real fix.

Also unfixed and not this PR's: `apm install` appends a duplicate `SessionStart` entry to `.claude/settings.json`, so a fresh clone cannot get pre-push green without an edit AGENTS.md warns against. Reproduces identically on `main`.

Co-authored-by: Defame1297 <gitea@rkdr.net>
Reviewed-on: https://git.dev.rkdr.net/Defame1297/holocron/pulls/129
Co-authored-by: Claude Code AI - Gitea MCP <claude@noreply.git.dev.rkdr.net>
Co-committed-by: Claude Code AI - Gitea MCP <claude@noreply.git.dev.rkdr.net>
2026-09-01 13:47:46 +00:00

3.0 KiB

improve-codebase-architecture

Surface architectural friction and propose deepening opportunities — refactors that turn shallow modules into deep ones.

What it does

Looks for places where a codebase is hard to understand, hard to test, or hard for an agent to navigate, and proposes refactors that concentrate behaviour behind smaller interfaces. It runs in three stages:

  1. Explore. Reads the domain glossary and any ADRs in the area first, then walks the codebase with an Explore sub-agent — organically, noting friction rather than applying fixed heuristics. The deletion test is the filter: imagine deleting the module; if complexity vanishes it was a pass-through, if complexity reappears across N callers it was earning its keep.
  2. Present candidates. A numbered list, each with files, problem, solution and benefits — benefits stated in terms of locality and leverage and of how tests would improve. No interfaces are proposed yet; the user picks one.
  3. Grilling loop. Walks the design tree for the chosen candidate, with documentation side effects landing inline as decisions crystallise.

The skill is opinionated about vocabulary, and that is the point: module, interface, implementation, depth, seam, adapter, leverage, locality, used exactly, with no drift into "component", "service", "API" or "boundary". Domain nouns come from CONTEXT.md, architecture nouns from LANGUAGE.md — so a proposal reads as "the Order intake module", never "the FooBarHandler".

ADRs are treated as decisions not to be re-litigated. A candidate that contradicts one is surfaced only when the friction is real enough to warrant reopening it, and is marked as such.

Composition

diagnose hands off here when a bug's post-mortem concludes that no correct test seam exists, or that callers are tangled — the recommendation is made after the fix is in, not before. The grilling loop follows grill-with-docs's discipline for CONTEXT.md entries and ADR offers, and SKILL.md names that skill's format documents directly.

Usage

/improve-codebase-architecture

Point at a codebase or an area of one. Expect a numbered candidate list and a "which of these would you like to explore?" before any interface design happens.

Files

File Purpose
SKILL.md Condensed glossary, key principles, and the three-stage process
LANGUAGE.md Skill-root document, cited throughout SKILL.md: full definitions of every term, the words each one replaces, and the full principle list
INTERFACE-DESIGN.md Skill-root document, read at stage 3 when the user wants alternative interfaces explored: the parallel sub-agent "Design It Twice" pattern, framing the problem space, and the per-agent design constraints
DEEPENING.md Skill-root document, cited from INTERFACE-DESIGN.md: how to deepen a cluster of shallow modules safely, the four dependency categories (in-process, local-substitutable, remote-but-owned, true external), seam discipline, and the replace-don't-layer testing strategy