nickgallick Nick Tech Debt
Use this as the default technical debt assessment skill.
Purpose
Identify technical debt that actually slows shipping, increases bug risk, or makes projects harder to change.
What to focus on
- duplicated code
- dead code / stale code paths
- oversized or overly complex files/functions
- weak test coverage around risky flows
- outdated patterns that make changes harder
- brittle auth/data logic
- config/env drift
- debt that blocks feature velocity
Hard rules
- Focus on debt that impacts development velocity, reliability, or change safety
- Do not waste time on cosmetic style nitpicks
- Separate high-impact debt from cleanup-later debt
- Give practical effort/payoff estimates
- Prefer next-action guidance over broad theory
Default workflow
- Scan the codebase for obvious debt signals
- Identify what most slows edits, testing, or understanding
- Classify debt by impact
- Estimate effort vs payoff
- Compare with previous scan when available
- Produce a practical prioritized report
Default output
- High-impact debt
- Medium/cleanup debt
- Risky hotspots
- Missing test coverage around risky areas
- Quick wins
- Trend comparison to last scan
- Recommended next fixes
Priority buckets
- Blocker
- Slows shipping
- Cleanup later
References
- Read
references/high-impact-signals.mdfor what matters most - Read
references/prioritization.mdfor effort/payoff logic - Read
references/trend-tracking.mdfor comparing scans over time - Read
references/report-shape.mdfor output structure
Bundled scripts
scripts/init_debt_report.sh— create a debt report stubscripts/generate_hotspot_checklist.sh— create hotspot review checklistscripts/generate_trend_stub.sh— create trend comparison stub