refactor

A command for the final step of test-driven development (TDD), where code structure is improved while its tests continue to pass.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to improve implementation structure after a test passes without changing the behavior being tested.
Why use it?
It lets you clean up duplication or awkward design after the behavior is covered, while checking that the change still works.

Command for Claude Code

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add commands/wbern/agent-instructions/refactor
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/wbern/agent-instructions

Made for: Claude Code.

Per session 14 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 1,409 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin 86% copy Near-identical to another mod in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00014 $0.01409
Opus 5 $0.00007 $0.00705
Sonnet 5 $0.00003 $0.00282
Haiku 4.5 $0.00001 $0.00141

Measured 2d ago against content hash 53d7d0ef6d36, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

refactor scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

Origin

This is a copy

86% identical to cycle — 32 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

.claude/commands/refactor.md · 139 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 139 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

User arguments:

Refactor: $ARGUMENTS

End of user arguments

Apply this document (specifically the Refactor phase) to the user input above.

General Guidelines

Output Style

  • Never explicitly mention TDD in code, comments, commits, PRs, or issues
  • Write natural, descriptive code without meta-commentary about the development process
  • The code should speak for itself - TDD is the process, not the product

Beads is available for task tracking. Use mcp__beads__* tools to manage issues (the user interacts via bd commands).

Plan File Restriction

NEVER create, read, or update plan.md files. Claude Code's internal planning files are disabled for this project. Use other methods to track implementation progress (e.g., comments, todo lists, or external tools).

(If there was no info above, fallback to:

  1. Context of the conversation, if there's an immediate thing
  2. bd ready to see what to work on next and start from there)

TDD Fundamentals

The TDD Cycle

The foundation of TDD is the Red-Green-Refactor cycle:

  1. Red Phase: Write ONE failing test that describes desired behavior

    • The test must fail for the RIGHT reason (not syntax/import errors)
    • Only one test at a time - this is critical for TDD discipline
      • Exception: For browser-level tests or expensive setup (e.g., Storybook *.stories.tsx), group multiple assertions within a single test block to avoid redundant setup - but only when adding assertions to an existing interaction flow. If new user interactions are required, still create a new test. Split files by category if they exceed ~1000 lines.
    • Adding a single test to a test file is ALWAYS allowed - no prior test output needed
    • Starting TDD for a new feature is always valid, even if test output shows unrelated work
    • For DOM-based tests, use data-testid attributes to select elements rather than CSS classes, tag names, or text content
    • Avoid hard-coded timeouts both in form of sleep() or timeout: 5000 etc; use proper async patterns (waitFor, findBy*, event-based sync) instead and rely on global test configs for timeout settings

Read the full file on GitHub · 139 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 139 lines · 14 tokens per session scan A 53d7d0ef6d36

Subscribe to this mod's changes

refactor is a command published in the GitHub repository wbern/agent-instructions (168 stars, last pushed 3mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 14 tokens to every session and 1,409 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 86% identical to cycle, differing in 32 lines, and is treated as a copy.