Refactor Safety

Refactor Safety

Purpose

Enforce a disciplined process for structural code changes: lock in existing behavior with tests before touching anything, shrink the diff to only what is necessary, keep each step independently verifiable, and maintain a clear rollback path. This prevents the three most common refactor failures — silent behavior regressions, test-suite gaps masked by green CI, and scope creep that tangles unrelated concerns into one unreviewable PR. The defining rule: a refactor must not change observable behavior, so the test result before and after must be identical.

When to use

• Renaming or relocating a function, class, or module called from more than three places.
• Changing a shared abstraction (base class, interface, widely-used utility) consumed across multiple packages.
• Extracting a large function into smaller units where real business logic lives inside the original.
• Migrating from one library or pattern to another (callbacks to Promises, class components to hooks, ORM A to ORM B).
• Removing code you are not 100% certain is unreachable.

When not to use

• You are fixing a bug — behavior must change, so use a bug-fix workflow with a failing test first, not a refactor.
• The change is a one-liner in a fully-tested leaf function with no callers outside its own file.
• You cannot run the test suite locally or in CI — stop and establish that first; a refactor without a safety net is a rewrite.
• The code is throwaway prototype scaffolding that will be deleted, not maintained.

Procedure

1. Establish a green baseline before touching code. Run the full suite and record the pass/fail count and the coverage percentage for the files you will modify. If coverage for the target module is below ~60%, write characterization tests first (step 2).
2. Write characterization tests for untested behavior. A characterization test calls the current function with realistic inputs and asserts the current output — even if that output looks wrong. The goal is to pin the existing contract, not validate it. Commit these tests before changing any production code.
3. Map every call site. Find all callers with git grep -n "functionName\|ClassName" -- '*.ts' or the IDE "Find usages". List them; you will verify each one after the change.
4. Decompose into the smallest atomic steps. A rename is one step. Moving a file is a separate step. Changing a signature is a separate step. Changing the implementation is a separate step. Never combine a rename with a logic change in one commit.
5. Apply one step, run tests immediately. After each atomic step run the scoped suite (npm test -- --testPathPattern=affected or pytest tests/affected). Do not advance until it is green. If a test fails, revert that single step and diagnose in isolation.
6. Verify call sites one by one. Walk the list from step 3 and confirm each caller still compiles and passes its own tests. For dynamic languages, also run the integration tests that exercise each path.
7. Check for non-obvious consumers. After a rename, search the old name in string literals (dynamic require/import), docs, config files, __mocks__, fixtures, and CI workflow YAML. Stale names there cause confusing runtime failures that the compiler never catches.
8. Confirm no unrelated changes crept in. Run git diff --stat, read every changed file, and revert anything outside the scoped module (or split it into a separate PR).
9. Clean up wrong-behavior characterization tests. Once proper unit tests exist for the new structure, delete any characterization test that asserted incorrect legacy behavior so it does not block future correct changes.

Refactor vs rewrite decision

Refactor in place when behavior must be preserved exactly and tests can prove it. Choose a rewrite (behind a flag, old path kept until the new one is proven) when the existing code has no tests, depends on a discontinued library, or its control flow cannot be reasoned about. The tell: if you cannot write a characterization test because you cannot predict the current output, you do not understand the code well enough to refactor it safely — rewrite against a spec instead.

Risk tiers (calibrate rigor to blast radius)

Concrete checks

• Test suite runs clean on the unmodified code; baseline pass/fail and coverage recorded.
• Characterization tests exist for any untested behavior in the target module and are committed first.
• All call sites located and listed before the first change.
• Each atomic step (rename / move / signature / logic) is its own commit.
• Tests re-run and pass after each atomic step — not just at the end.
• Old name searched in string literals, config, mocks, docs, and CI files.
• git diff --stat reviewed; no unrelated files appear.
• Typecheck/compiler/linter at zero errors before opening the PR.
• An integration or e2e test exercising the changed path still passes.
• Characterization tests asserting legacy-wrong behavior cleaned up after the refactor.
• The branch was rebased onto current main before the call-site map was built.
• The before/after suite outcome is identical (same pass/fail counts), proving behavior was preserved.
• Coverage on the touched module did not drop versus the baseline.

Commands

# 1. Baseline: record pass/fail and coverage for the target before changes
npm test -- --watch=false
npx jest --coverage --collectCoverageFrom='src/auth/**' 2>/dev/null | tail -20
# Python equivalent:
pytest --cov=src/auth --cov-report=term-missing -q | tail -20

# 2. Map all call sites (static)
git grep -n "calcPrice\|PriceCalculator" -- '*.ts' '*.tsx'
git grep -l "calcPrice" | wc -l            # blast-radius count

# 3. Catch dynamic / non-obvious consumers a compiler will miss
rg -n "calcPrice" --type-add 'cfg:*.{json,yaml,yml,md}' -tcfg
rg -n "require\(.*calcPrice|import\(.*calcPrice" src/
rg -n "calcPrice" __mocks__/ test/fixtures/ .github/workflows/

# 4. Per-step verification (run after EACH atomic commit)
npm test -- --testPathPattern=auth
tsc --noEmit && npx eslint src/auth

# 5. Confirm no unrelated churn before opening the PR
git diff --stat
git diff --name-only | grep -v '^src/auth/' || echo "scope clean"

# Language-specific call-site + dead-code detection
# TypeScript: find unused exports before deleting a symbol
npx ts-prune | rg "calcPrice"
# Python: find references and dead code
git grep -n "calc_price" -- '*.py'
vulture src/ --min-confidence 80 | rg "calc_price"
# Go: who imports the package, and is the symbol used
go list -deps ./... | rg pricing
staticcheck ./... 2>/dev/null | rg "U1000"   # unused code

# Worked example: a rename split into atomic, individually-green commits
git mv src/pricing/calcPrice.ts src/pricing/priceCalculator.ts   # step A: move only
npm test -- --testPathPattern=pricing && git commit -am "move: rename file"
# step B: rename the symbol, update imports, no logic change
rg -l "calcPrice" src/ | xargs sed -i '' 's/calcPrice/priceCalculator/g'
npm test -- --testPathPattern=pricing && git commit -am "rename: calcPrice -> priceCalculator"
# step C (separate PR): only now change behavior, with a new failing test first
git diff --stat   # confirm step B touched only renames, zero logic lines

# Bisect a regression introduced by a refactor (atomic commits make this work)
git bisect start
git bisect bad                       # current HEAD is broken
git bisect good <pre-refactor-sha>   # last known-good commit
# git checks out midpoints; at each step run the scoped test and mark it:
npm test -- --testPathPattern=pricing && git bisect good || git bisect bad
git bisect reset                     # when the first bad commit is found

# Verify the suite outcome is byte-identical before vs after (behavior preserved)
git stash && npm test -- --watch=false 2>&1 | tee /tmp/before.txt
git stash pop && npm test -- --watch=false 2>&1 | tee /tmp/after.txt
diff <(grep -E 'Tests:|passing|failing' /tmp/before.txt) \
     <(grep -E 'Tests:|passing|failing' /tmp/after.txt) && echo "behavior preserved"

# Confirm coverage did not drop on the touched module
npx jest --coverage --collectCoverageFrom='src/pricing/**' 2>/dev/null | rg "pricing|All files"

Common issues & anti-patterns

• Opportunistic cleanup. Reformatting, renaming locals, or tweaking unrelated logic during a structural refactor. It inflates the diff, pollutes git blame, and breaks git bisect. Resist all of it.
• Skipping characterization tests because "the code is obvious." The refactor passes CI and an edge case silently breaks; it surfaces months later with no failing test to point at.
• Move and change in one commit. Combining git mv src/auth.ts src/authentication.ts with logic edits makes bisect useless — you cannot tell whether the move or the logic introduced the regression.
• Missing dynamic imports. require(path.join(__dirname, moduleName)) is invisible to static grep. Search the string form separately.
• Compiler green, runtime red. any casts and loose JS interop hide type mismatches that only fail at runtime. Run integration tests, not only unit tests.
• Deleting the old symbol too early. Removing the old function before all callers are migrated and one full CI run is green on the new path.
• Reformatting the whole file. Letting the editor reformat-on-save turns a 3-line change into a 300-line diff where the real change is invisible to the reviewer. Format only the lines you touch, or land a formatting-only commit first.
• Refactoring on a stale branch. Starting from a branch days behind main means the call-site map is wrong by the time you finish. Rebase to current main before mapping callers.
• Trusting "find usages" for reflection. IDE find-usages misses string-keyed lookups, DI containers, and serialized type names. Pair it with a raw text search of the old name.

Required output

Report must include:

• Baseline: test count and coverage % for the target module before changes.
• Characterization tests added: test names and the behavior each locks in.
• Call sites found: count and a representative file list.
• Steps executed: ordered atomic commits with the test result after each.
• Non-obvious consumers checked: string literals, config, mocks, docs, CI — result for each.
• Final diff stats: files changed, lines added, lines removed.
• Remaining gaps: any call site not verified (runtime-dynamic, behind a feature flag) and why.
• Risk tier: which tier (low/medium/high/critical) the change fell into and whether the matching safety net was applied.
• Behavior-preservation evidence: the before/after test result showing the suite outcome is identical (the core proof a refactor changed no behavior).

Safety

• Never combine a refactor with a bug fix or feature in the same PR; keep intents separate and reviewable.
• If you cannot establish a green baseline first, stop and surface that as the primary problem to fix before refactoring.
• Do not delete the old function/module until all callers are confirmed migrated and at least one full CI run passes on the new code.
• Do not weaken or remove existing tests to make a refactor "pass"; a test that now fails is signalling a behavior change.