# Tech Debt Triage

> Score, prioritize, and plan technical debt remediation

- Skill: `diegosouzapw/tech-debt-triage` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add diegosouzapw/tech-debt-triage`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/diegosouzapw/tech-debt-triage/raw
- Safety review: pending (external: skill-scanner PASS, skillspector PASS)
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: diegosouzapw (https://skillmd.com/u/diegosouzapw)
- Updated: 2026-09-08
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/diegosouzapw/tech-debt-triage

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# Tech Debt Triage Skill

Score, prioritize, and plan technical debt remediation.

## Trigger Conditions
- Sprint planning session
- Quarterly tech debt review
- User invokes with "triage tech debt" or "debt assessment"

## Input Contract
- **Required:** Codebase metrics (churn, complexity, defect density)
- **Optional:** Developer pain surveys, postmortem findings, code review history

## Output Contract
- Scored and prioritized debt backlog
- Quick wins identified (low effort, high impact)
- Remediation roadmap with effort estimates
- Contagion analysis (debt spreading to new code)

## Tool Permissions
- **Read:** Code metrics, git history, defect tracker, postmortems
- **Write:** Tech debt reports, backlog items
- **Search:** Code hotspots and churn patterns

## Execution Steps
1. Collect code metrics: churn, complexity, defect density
2. Identify hotspots (high churn + high complexity)
3. Score each debt item: impact (blast radius), effort (team-days), contagion
4. Identify quick wins (effort <1d, impact >medium)
5. Check for recurring patterns from postmortems
6. Create prioritized backlog
7. Estimate remediation effort for top items

## Success Criteria
- All debt items scored on 3 dimensions
- Quick wins identified and flagged
- Top 10 items have effort estimates
- Contagion patterns identified

## Escalation Rules
- Escalate if debt item blocks feature delivery
- Escalate if contagion is spreading to >3 modules
- Escalate if debt remediation requires >1 sprint of dedicated work

## Example Invocations

**Input:** "Triage tech debt for the order processing module"

**Output:** 14 debt items identified. Top 3: 1) OrderProcessor god class (impact: 9, effort: 3d, contagion: HIGH — 6 modules depend on it), 2) Missing retry logic in payment integration (impact: 8, effort: 1d, contagion: MEDIUM), 3) Hardcoded config values (impact: 5, effort: 0.5d, contagion: LOW — quick win). Remediation roadmap: sprint N (quick wins), sprint N+1 (retry logic), sprint N+2-N+3 (OrderProcessor decomposition).