Refactoring Skills Skill

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.

Routing

Pattern: Tree Handoff: mixed (auto-invoke per classification) Next: analyzing-agent-systems | writing-skills | writing-rules Chain: maintenance

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:

Discover all skills
Analyze and classify
Execute refactoring plan
Extract shared conventions
Validate results
Generate report

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

Execution rules:

TaskUpdate status="in_progress" BEFORE starting each task
TaskUpdate status="completed" ONLY after verification passes
If task fails → stay in_progress, diagnose, retry
NEVER skip to next task until current is completed
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, informed by systematic weakness analysis.

First: Invoke analyzing-agent-systems skill to get a comprehensive analysis report covering all 8 weakness categories. This replaces manual analysis.

Then classify each skill using both the analysis report and manual assessment:

Classification Matrix

| Status | Criteria | Action | |--------|----------|--------| | Keep | Well-structured, unique purpose, no weaknesses flagged | None | | Refactor | Analysis flagged weaknesses but valuable | Use writing-skills to improve | | Merge | Analysis found overlap with another skill | Consolidate into primary | | Extract | Analysis found duplicated conventions | Move to rule file | | Delete | Redundant, unused, or superseded | Remove entirely |

Analysis-Informed Questions

For each skill, check against analysis report:

Did analysis flag routing/trigger weaknesses for this skill?
Did analysis find context management issues?
Did analysis detect overlap with other skills?
Is this skill referenced in any broken chain?
Does it follow current standards? (frontmatter, line count, sections)

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, informed by analysis report.

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

Identify the primary skill (keep this one)
Extract unique content from secondary skill
Integrate into primary skill
Delete secondary skill directory

For Skills to Delete

Confirm no dependencies (grep for skill name)
Remove entire skill directory
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:

Identify duplicated constraint
Invoke writing-rules skill to create rule
Remove constraint from all skills
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;
}

Skill Chain Reference (Maintenance)

| Step | Skill | Purpose | |------|-------|---------| | 1 | analyzing-agent-systems | Weakness analysis (invoked in Task 2) | | 2 | writing-skills | Refactor individual skills (invoked in Task 3) | | 3 | writing-rules | Extract shared conventions (invoked in Task 4) | | 4 | skill-reviewer | Quality validation (subagent, Task 5) |

References

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

Agent Skills: Refactoring Skills

Install this agent skill to your local

Skill Files