Agent Skills: Refactoring Skills

Refactoring Skills

Overview

Refactoring skills IS applying clean code principles to documentation.

Consolidate, simplify, extract shared conventions, remove redundancy.

Core principle: Fewer focused skills > many overlapping skills.

Violating the letter of the rules is violating the spirit of the rules.

Task Initialization (MANDATORY)

Before ANY action, create task list using TaskCreate:

TaskCreate for EACH task below:
- Subject: "[refactoring-skills] Task N: <action>"
- ActiveForm: "<doing action>"

Tasks:

1. Discover all skills
2. Analyze and classify
3. Execute refactoring plan
4. Extract shared conventions
5. Validate results
6. Generate report

Announce: "Created 6 tasks. Starting execution..."

Execution rules:

1. TaskUpdate status="in_progress" BEFORE starting each task
2. TaskUpdate status="completed" ONLY after verification passes
3. If task fails → stay in_progress, diagnose, retry
4. NEVER skip to next task until current is completed
5. At end, TaskList to confirm all completed

Task 1: Discover All Skills

Goal: Find all skills in the project.

Search locations:

find . -name "SKILL.md" -type f 2>/dev/null
ls -la .claude/skills/ 2>/dev/null

Also check:

• Plugin directories
• User-level skills (~/.claude/skills/)

Document:

• Skill name
• Location
• Brief description

Verification: Complete list of all skills with locations.

Task 2: Analyze and Classify

Goal: Classify each skill for action.

Classification Matrix

| Status | Criteria | Action | |--------|----------|--------| | Keep | Well-structured, unique purpose, follows standards | None | | Refactor | Has issues but valuable | Use writing-skills to improve | | Merge | Overlaps with another skill | Consolidate into primary | | Extract | Has conventions shared by others | Move to rule file | | Delete | Redundant, unused, or superseded | Remove entirely |

Analysis Questions

For each skill:

1. Is the purpose clear and unique?
2. Does it overlap with another skill?
3. Does it contain shared conventions (→ extract to rule)?
4. Is it actually used?
5. Does it follow current standards?

Optional: External Search

If claude-skills-mcp is available:

mcp__claude-skills-mcp__search_skills query="[skill domain]"

Compare with community implementations. Better patterns exist?

Verification: Each skill has a classification and action.

Task 3: Execute Refactoring Plan

Goal: Apply the classified actions.

For Skills to Refactor

Invoke the writing-skills skill with the existing skill path.

For Skills to Merge

1. Identify the primary skill (keep this one)
2. Extract unique content from secondary skill
3. Integrate into primary skill
4. Delete secondary skill directory

For Skills to Delete

1. Confirm no dependencies (grep for skill name)
2. Remove entire skill directory
3. Remove from any manifest references

CRITICAL: One action at a time. Verify after each.

Verification: All classified actions executed.

Task 4: Extract Shared Conventions

Goal: Move duplicated conventions to rule files.

Signs of shared conventions:

• Same constraint appears in 2+ skills
• Convention is about "what" not "how"
• Convention is path-specific

Process:

1. Identify duplicated constraint
2. Invoke writing-rules skill to create rule
3. Remove constraint from all skills
4. Verify rule auto-injects correctly

Verification: No duplicated conventions across skills.

Task 5: Validate Results

Goal: Verify all remaining skills are valid.

For each skill:

python3 scripts/validate_skill.py <skill-path>

Or manual checklist:

• [ ] Frontmatter has name and description
• [ ] Description starts with "Use when..."
• [ ] Body < 300 lines
• [ ] No duplicated conventions (now in rules)

Verification: All remaining skills pass validation.

Task 6: Generate Report

Goal: Document what was done.

Report Format

## Refactoring Summary

### Skills Analyzed: N

### Actions Taken:
| Skill | Action | Notes |
|-------|--------|-------|
| skill-name | kept/refactored/merged/deleted | details |

### Rules Extracted:
| Rule | Source Skills |
|------|--------------|
| rule-name | skill-a, skill-b |

### Recommendations:
- [Future improvements]

Verification: Report accurately reflects all changes.

Red Flags - STOP

These thoughts mean you're rationalizing. STOP and reconsider:

• "Keep all skills, they might be useful"
• "Too much overlap is fine"
• "Don't need to extract conventions"
• "Skip validation, I just fixed them"
• "Report is busywork"

All of these mean: You're about to leave mess behind. Follow the process.

Common Rationalizations

| Excuse | Reality | |--------|---------| | "Keep everything" | Unused skills are clutter. Delete them. | | "Overlap is fine" | Overlap = confusion. Merge or differentiate. | | "Skip extraction" | Duplicated conventions drift. Extract to rules. | | "Skip validation" | Fixed skills can still be broken. Validate. | | "Skip report" | Report documents decisions for future you. |

Flowchart: Skill Refactoring

digraph refactor_skills {
    rankdir=TB;

    start [label="Refactor skills", shape=doublecircle];
    discover [label="Task 1: Discover\nall skills", shape=box];
    analyze [label="Task 2: Analyze\nand classify", shape=box];
    execute [label="Task 3: Execute\nrefactoring plan", shape=box];
    extract [label="Task 4: Extract\nshared conventions", shape=box];
    validate [label="Task 5: Validate\nresults", shape=box];
    valid [label="All\nvalid?", shape=diamond];
    report [label="Task 6: Generate\nreport", shape=box];
    done [label="Refactoring complete", shape=doublecircle];

    start -> discover;
    discover -> analyze;
    analyze -> execute;
    execute -> extract;
    extract -> validate;
    validate -> valid;
    valid -> report [label="yes"];
    valid -> execute [label="no\nfix"];
    report -> done;
}

References

• Use writing-skills skill for improving skills
• Use writing-rules skill for extracting conventions
• Use skill-reviewer subagent for quality checks