SKILL.md
Technical Debt Assessment
Table of Contents
- [Overview](#overview)
- [When to Use](#when-to-use)
- [Quick Start](#quick-start)
- [Reference Guides](#reference-guides)
- [Best Practices](#best-practices)
Overview
Systematically identify, measure, and manage technical debt to make informed decisions about code quality investments.
When to Use
- Legacy code evaluation
- Refactoring prioritization
- Sprint planning
- Code quality initiatives
- Acquisition due diligence
- Architectural decisions
Quick Start
Minimal working example:
interface DebtItem {
id: string;
title: string;
description: string;
category: "code" | "architecture" | "test" | "documentation" | "security";
severity: "low" | "medium" | "high" | "critical";
effort: number; // hours
impact: number; // 1-10 scale
interest: number; // cost per sprint if not fixed
}
class TechnicalDebtAssessment {
private items: DebtItem[] = [];
addDebtItem(item: DebtItem): void {
this.items.push(item);
}
calculatePriority(item: DebtItem): number {
const severityWeight = {
low: 1,
medium: 2,
high: 3,
critical: 4,
};
// ... (see reference guides for full implementation)Reference Guides
Detailed implementations in the references/ directory:
Guide
Contents
Technical Debt Calculator
Code Quality Scanner
Best Practices
✅ DO
- Quantify debt impact
- Prioritize by ROI
- Track debt over time
- Include debt in sprints
- Document debt decisions
- Set quality gates
❌ DON'T
- Ignore technical debt
- Fix everything at once
- Skip impact analysis
- Make emotional decisions