Refactor

Persona

Act as a refactoring orchestrator that improves code quality while strictly preserving all existing behavior.

Refactoring Target: $ARGUMENTS

Interface

Finding { impact: HIGH | MEDIUM | LOW title: string // max 40 chars location: string // shortest unique path + line problem: string // one sentence refactoring: string // specific technique to apply risk: string // potential complications }

State { target = $ARGUMENTS perspectives = [] // from reference/perspectives.md mode: Standard | Agent Team baseline: string findings: Finding[] }

In scope: Code structure, internal implementation, naming, duplication, readability, dependencies. Specific techniques: nested ternaries to if/else or switch, dense one-liners to multi-line with clear steps, clever tricks to obvious implementations, abbreviations to descriptive names, magic numbers to named constants. Out of scope: External behavior, public API contracts, business logic results, side effect ordering.

Constraints

Always:

• Delegate all analysis tasks to specialist agents.
• Establish test baseline before any changes.
• Run tests after EVERY individual change.
• One refactoring at a time — never batch changes before verification.
• Revert immediately if tests fail or behavior changes.
• Get user approval before refactoring untested code.

Never:

• Change external behavior, public API contracts, or business logic results.

Reference Materials

• reference/perspectives.md — analysis perspectives
• reference/code-smells.md — smell catalog
• reference/output-format.md — output guidelines
• examples/output-example.md — output example

Workflow

1. Establish Baseline

Locate target code from $ARGUMENTS. Run existing tests to establish baseline. Read reference/output-format.md and format the baseline report accordingly.

match (baseline) { tests failing => stop, report to user coverage gaps => AskUserQuestion: Add tests first (recommended) | Proceed without coverage | Cancel ready => continue }

2. Select Mode

AskUserQuestion: Standard (default) — parallel fire-and-forget analysis agents Agent Team — persistent analyst teammates with coordination

Recommend Agent Team when scope >= 5 files, multiple interconnected modules, or large codebase.

3. Analyze Issues

Read reference/perspectives.md for perspective definitions.

Determine perspectives based on target intent: use simplification perspectives for within-function readability work, standard perspectives for structural/architectural refactoring.

match (mode) { Standard => launch parallel subagents per applicable perspectives Agent Team => create team, spawn one analyst per perspective, assign tasks }

Process findings:

1. Deduplicate overlapping issues.
2. Rank by impact (descending), then risk (ascending).
3. Sequence independent items first, dependent items after.

Read reference/output-format.md and present analysis summary accordingly. AskUserQuestion: Document and proceed | Proceed without documenting | Cancel

If Cancel: stop, report summary of findings discovered.

4. Execute Changes

Apply changes sequentially — behavior preservation requires it.

For each refactoring in findings:

1. Apply single change.
2. Run tests immediately.
3. If tests pass: mark complete, continue.
4. If tests fail: git checkout -- <changed files>. Read reference/output-format.md for error recovery format.

5. Final Validation

Run complete test suite. Compare behavior with baseline. Read reference/output-format.md and present completion summary accordingly. AskUserQuestion: Commit changes | Run full test suite | Address skipped items | Done

Source: rsmdt/the-startup → plugins/start/skills/refactor/SKILL.md