Agent Skills: Tech Debt Tracker

Tech Debt Tracker

The agent identifies, scores, prioritizes, and tracks technical debt across codebases using AST parsing, cost-of-delay analysis, and trend dashboards.

Core Capabilities

• Detection — AST parsing (Python) and regex pattern matching (all languages) across six debt categories: code, architecture, test, documentation, dependency, infrastructure.
• Severity scoring — rate each item on velocity, quality, productivity, and business impact (1-10) plus effort sizing (XS-XL) and risk.
• Cost-of-delay — compute interest rate (Impact x Frequency) and cost of delay (Interest x Sprints x Team Multiplier); also WSJF and RICE frameworks.
• Prioritization — plot on the Cost-of-Delay vs Effort matrix (Immediate / Planned / Opportunistic / Backlog).
• Sprint allocation — apply the Debt-to-Feature ratio by team velocity; reserve capacity for debt work.
• Refactoring strategies — Strangler Fig, Branch by Abstraction, Feature Toggles, Parallel Run.
• Reporting — executive and engineering dashboards, trend analysis, velocity tracking, and forecasts from scan snapshots.

When to Use

• Tracking and quantifying technical debt across a repository.
• Prioritizing refactoring work and calculating cost-of-delay.
• Planning sprint capacity allocation between debt and features.
• Reporting debt health, trends, and investment recommendations to execs.

Clarify First

Before scanning or reporting, confirm these inputs. If any is unknown or vague, ASK — do not assume:

• [ ] Target codebase — the directory to scan (the subject of the debt inventory)
• [ ] Prioritization framework & team size — cost-of-delay / WSJF / RICE and headcount (--framework, --team-size; changes the ranking and sprint allocation)
• [ ] Report audience — exec dashboard vs engineering inventory (sets the report format and altitude)

Stop rule: ask only the 2-3 that most change the output. If the user says "just draft it," proceed and list your assumptions at the top of the artifact.

Tools

| Tool | Purpose | Command | |------|---------|---------| | debt_scanner.py | Scan a directory for debt signals; output JSON inventory + text report | python scripts/debt_scanner.py <dir> --output scan_results --format both | | debt_prioritizer.py | Enrich inventory with cost-of-delay/WSJF/RICE and sprint allocation | python scripts/debt_prioritizer.py scan_results.json --framework wsjf --team-size 8 | | debt_dashboard.py | Trend analysis, velocity, forecasts, and exec summary across snapshots | python scripts/debt_dashboard.py --input-dir ./debt_scans/ --period quarterly |

References

Load the reference that matches the task — keep this file lean and pull detail on demand:

• references/methodology.md — the 7-step workflow, debt-classification table, severity scoring framework, interest-rate/cost-of-delay formulas, prioritization matrix, WSJF, sprint allocation ratios, the debt-item JSON schema, refactoring strategies, and quarterly planning. Read when scoring, prioritizing, or planning.
• references/tool-reference.md — full parameter tables, examples, and output-format details for all three scripts plus the troubleshooting table. Read when running the scripts or debugging output.
• references/dashboards-and-examples.md — executive and engineering dashboard layouts, a worked Python-microservice scan example, and the success-criteria bar. Read when generating reports or validating quality.
• references/debt-classification-taxonomy.md — comprehensive taxonomy for classifying debt across dimensions with detection heuristics per category. Read when calibrating detection or labeling items.
• references/prioritization-framework.md — deep prioritization approaches based on business value, risk, effort, and strategic alignment. Read when designing a prioritization rubric.
• references/stakeholder-communication-templates.md — templates and guidelines for communicating debt status, impact, and recommendations to different stakeholder groups. Read when reporting to execs or product.

Also see the skill-root REFERENCE.md for the Technical Debt Quadrant (Fowler) and the implementation roadmap phases.

Scope & Limitations

This skill covers:

• Static detection of code-level, architecture, test, documentation, dependency, and infrastructure debt via AST parsing (Python) and regex pattern matching (all languages).
• Quantitative prioritization of debt items using cost-of-delay, WSJF, and RICE frameworks with configurable team size and sprint capacity.
• Historical trend analysis, health scoring, debt velocity tracking, and executive/engineering dashboard generation from multiple scan snapshots.
• Sprint allocation planning with capacity-aware backlog scheduling and effort estimation by debt type.

This skill does NOT cover:

• Runtime performance profiling or production monitoring -- see engineering/performance-profiler and engineering/observability-designer for those concerns.
• Dependency vulnerability scanning (CVE detection) or software composition analysis -- see engineering/dependency-auditor for security-focused dependency review.
• Automated refactoring or code transformation -- the skill identifies and prioritizes debt but does not modify source code.
• Database schema debt, API contract drift, or infrastructure-as-code drift detection -- see engineering/database-schema-designer, engineering/api-design-reviewer, and engineering/migration-architect for those domains.

Integration Points

| Skill | Integration | Data Flow | |-------|-------------|-----------| | engineering/dependency-auditor | Feed dependency audit findings into the scanner as dependency_debt items to unify all debt in one inventory. | Dependency audit JSON -> scanner config or manual merge into debt_inventory.json | | engineering/performance-profiler | Correlate performance hotspots with high-complexity debt items to prioritize refactoring that yields both quality and speed gains. | Profiler hotspot report -> cross-reference with scanner output by file path | | engineering/ci-cd-pipeline-builder | Add debt_scanner.py as a CI pipeline step to fail builds when health score drops below a threshold or critical debt count increases. | Scanner JSON output -> CI gate condition on summary.health_score | | engineering/pr-review-expert | Surface relevant debt items during code review by querying the debt inventory for files touched in a pull request. | PR changed-files list -> filter debt_inventory.json by file_path | | engineering/observability-designer | Map infrastructure debt items (missing monitoring, env inconsistencies) to observability gaps identified by the observability skill. | Dashboard category_distribution -> observability gap analysis | | engineering/migration-architect | Use the prioritized backlog to scope and sequence large-scale migration efforts, especially for architecture-category debt rated as planned initiatives. | Prioritizer sprint_allocation -> migration planning timeline |