# Tech Debt

> Identify, categorize, and prioritize technical debt. Trigger with "tech debt", "technical debt audit", "what should we refactor", "code health", or when the user asks about code quality, refactoring priorities, or maintenance backlog.

- Skill: `nota-america/tech-debt` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add nota-america/tech-debt`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/nota-america/tech-debt/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Product & Planning
- Author: nota-america (https://skillmd.com/u/nota-america)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/nota-america/tech-debt

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# Tech Debt Management

Systematically identify, categorize, and prioritize technical debt.

## Categories

| Type | Examples | Risk |
|------|----------|------|
| **Code debt** | Duplicated logic, poor abstractions, magic numbers | Bugs, slow development |
| **Architecture debt** | Monolith that should be split, wrong data store | Scaling limits |
| **Test debt** | Low coverage, flaky tests, missing integration tests | Regressions ship |
| **Dependency debt** | Outdated libraries, unmaintained dependencies | Security vulns |
| **Documentation debt** | Missing runbooks, outdated READMEs, tribal knowledge | Onboarding pain |
| **Infrastructure debt** | Manual deploys, no monitoring, no IaC | Incidents, slow recovery |

## Prioritization Framework

Score each item on:
- **Impact**: How much does it slow the team down? (1-5)
- **Risk**: What happens if we don't fix it? (1-5)
- **Effort**: How hard is the fix? (1-5, inverted — lower effort = higher priority)

Priority = (Impact + Risk) x (6 - Effort)

## Output

Produce a prioritized list with estimated effort, business justification for each item, and a phased remediation plan that can be done alongside feature work.