Defame1297
60be7b3232
Only 12 of 39 skills carried metadata.version, and adoption tracked which plugin a skill lived in rather than any stated rule: core, gitea and lint were consistent adopters, bin and kyberforge were consistent non-adopters, git was split with one outlier. There was no documented convention, and skill-author's own bump logic was already written as if presence were conditional. metadata.version is now required on every skill. The 19 skills here that never carried one (bin, kyberforge, gitea-files) are seeded at 1.0.0, not 0.1.0 -- that value stays reserved for a skill's actual creation point under skill-author's existing convention. The skill-frontmatter pre-commit hook now fails a SKILL.md missing the field, the same class of failure as a missing name/description. Full rationale in the new ADR. The git-plugin skills that also need this field follow in the next commit, bundled with issue #113's rtk normalization since both touch the same files. Refs: #127 ADR: 0022 Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01EeH8SCbcrCAQrtymkNuhKP
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name, description, metadata
| name | description | metadata | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| improve-codebase-architecture | Use when the user wants to improve architecture, find refactoring opportunities, consolidate tightly-coupled modules, or make a codebase more testable and AI-navigable — deepening opportunities that turn shallow modules into deep ones, informed by `CONTEXT.md` and `docs/adr/`. Not debugging a failure -> `diagnose`. |
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Improve Codebase Architecture
Surface architectural friction and propose deepening opportunities — refactors that turn shallow modules into deep ones. The aim is testability and AI-navigability.
Glossary
Use these terms exactly in every suggestion. Consistent language is the point — don't drift into "component," "service," "API," or "boundary."
- Module — anything with an interface and an implementation (function, class, package, slice).
- Interface — everything a caller must know to use the module: types, invariants, error modes, ordering, config. Not just the type signature.
- Implementation — the code inside.
- Depth — leverage at the interface: a lot of behaviour behind a small interface. Deep = high leverage. Shallow = interface nearly as complex as the implementation.
- Seam — where an interface lives; a place behaviour can be altered without editing in place. (Use this, not "boundary.")
- Adapter — a concrete thing satisfying an interface at a seam.
- Leverage — what callers get from depth.
- Locality — what maintainers get from depth: change, bugs, knowledge concentrated in one place.
Key principles:
- Deletion test: imagine deleting the module. If complexity vanishes, it was a pass-through. If complexity reappears across N callers, it was earning its keep.
- The interface is the test surface.
- One adapter = hypothetical seam. Two adapters = real seam.
If a term or principle above is ambiguous in the case in front of you, or you need the definitions and the principles the two lists leave out, read LANGUAGE.md.
This skill is informed by the project's domain model. The domain language gives names to good seams; ADRs record decisions the skill should not re-litigate.
Process
1. Explore
Read the project's domain glossary and any ADRs in the area you're touching first.
Then use the Agent tool with subagent_type=Explore to walk the codebase. Don't follow rigid heuristics — explore organically and note where you experience friction:
- Where does understanding one concept require bouncing between many small modules?
- Where are modules shallow — interface nearly as complex as the implementation?
- Where have pure functions been extracted just for testability, but the real bugs hide in how they're called (no locality)?
- Where do tightly-coupled modules leak across their seams?
- Which parts of the codebase are untested, or hard to test through their current interface?
Apply the deletion test to anything you suspect is shallow: would deleting it concentrate complexity, or just move it? A "yes, concentrates" is the signal you want.
2. Present candidates
Present a numbered list of deepening opportunities. For each candidate:
- Files — which files/modules are involved
- Problem — why the current architecture is causing friction
- Solution — plain English description of what would change
- Benefits — explained in terms of locality and leverage, and also in how tests would improve
Use CONTEXT.md vocabulary for the domain, and the architecture glossary above for the architecture. If CONTEXT.md defines "Order," talk about "the Order intake module" — not "the FooBarHandler," and not "the Order service."
ADR conflicts: if a candidate contradicts an existing ADR, only surface it when the friction is real enough to warrant revisiting the ADR. Mark it clearly (e.g. "contradicts ADR-0007 — but worth reopening because…"). Don't list every theoretical refactor an ADR forbids.
Do NOT propose interfaces yet. Ask the user: "Which of these would you like to explore?"
3. Grilling loop
Once the user picks a candidate, drop into a grilling conversation. Walk the design tree with them — constraints, dependencies, the shape of the deepened module, what sits behind the seam, what tests survive.
Side effects happen inline as decisions crystallize:
- Naming a deepened module after a concept not in
CONTEXT.md? Add the term toCONTEXT.md— same discipline asgrill-with-docs, in the formatgrill-with-docs'sCONTEXT-FORMAT.mddefines. Create the file lazily if it doesn't exist. - Sharpening a fuzzy term during the conversation? Update
CONTEXT.mdright there. - User rejects the candidate with a load-bearing reason? Offer an ADR, framed as: "Want me to record this as an ADR so future architecture reviews don't re-suggest it?" Only offer when the reason would actually be needed by a future explorer to avoid re-suggesting the same thing — skip ephemeral reasons ("not worth it right now") and self-evident ones. See
grill-with-docs'sADR-FORMAT.md. - Want to explore alternative interfaces for the deepened module? Read
INTERFACE-DESIGN.md.