continuous-refactor

A repeating workflow that finds small code improvements, applies selected refactorings, and checks that the code still works. Refactoring means changing code structure without intending to change its behavior.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to scan for refactoring candidates, execute selected improvements, and verify their correctness.
Why use it?
It provides a recurring process for reducing code smells and maintaining code quality. Verification is built into the cycle after changes are made.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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 skills/brifl/coding-agent-orchestration/continuous-refactor
Any agent
npx skills add brifl/coding-agent-orchestration --skill continuous-refactor
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/brifl/coding-agent-orchestration

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 16 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,031 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found 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 $0.00016 $0.01031
Opus 5 $0.00008 $0.00515
Sonnet 5 $0.00003 $0.00206
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00103

Measured 2d ago against content hash 9c220f8d33d8, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

continuous-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.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 1 executable file (scripts/continuous_refactor.py), listed below but not scanned — reading those needs a real analyzer, not pattern matching.

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.

.codex/skills/continuous-refactor/SKILL.md · 119 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 119 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

continuous-refactor

Purpose

Run the continuous-refactor workflow in continuous mode until the dispatcher returns recommended_role: stop (only [MINOR] refactoring ideas remain).

The workflow rotates through three prompt steps in a strict cycle:

  1. prompt.refactor_scan — identify code smells and refactoring candidates
  2. prompt.refactor_execute — apply selected refactorings
  3. prompt.refactor_verify — verify refactored code correctness

Cold starts are handled automatically — the infrastructure initialises the rotation at step 1 when no prior runtime entry exists.

Agent execution protocol

Run one dispatcher step at a time:

# 1. Ask the dispatcher for the next prompt
python3 .codex/skills/vibe-loop/scripts/agentctl.py --repo-root . --format json next --workflow continuous-refactor

# 2. Read the prompt body from the catalog path returned by the dispatcher
python3 .codex/skills/vibe-prompts/scripts/prompt_catalog.py <prompt_catalog_path> get <recommended_prompt_id>

# 3. Execute the prompt body (do the actual refactoring work)

# 4. After execution, record the loop result
python3 .codex/skills/vibe-loop/scripts/agentctl.py --repo-root . --format json loop-result --line "LOOP_RESULT: <json>"

# 5. Repeat from step 1 until recommended_role == "stop"

The --workflow continuous-refactor flag is required — it activates the continuous override that ignores normal plan-state routing and selects from the refactor prompt rotation instead.

In this orchestration source repo, use tools/agentctl.py and tools/prompt_catalog.py instead; the .codex runtime helper scripts are generated during install.

LOOP_RESULT format

After executing each prompt, emit a LOOP_RESULT JSON line with the dispatcher-required report fields:

{
  "loop": "implement",
  "result": "ready_for_review",
  "stage": "<current_stage>",
  "checkpoint": "<current_checkpoint>",
  "status": "<current_status>",
  "next_role_hint": "implement|review|stop",
  "workflow": "continuous-refactor",
  "report": {
    "acceptance_matrix": [
      {
        "item": "<checked behavior>",
        "status": "PASS|FAIL|N/A",
        "evidence": "<command or file evidence>",
        "critical": true,
        "confidence": 0.9,
        "evidence_strength": "LOW|MEDIUM|HIGH"
      }
    ],
    "top_findings": [
      {"impact": "MAJOR|MINOR", "title": "[MAJOR|MODERATE|MINOR] ...", "evidence": "...", "action": "..."}
    ],
    "state_transition": {
      "before": {"stage": "<current_stage>", "checkpoint": "<current_checkpoint>", "status": "<previous_status>"},
      "after": {"stage": "<current_stage>", "checkpoint": "<current_checkpoint>", "status": "<current_status>"}
    },
    "loop_result": {
      "loop": "implement",
      "result": "ready_for_review",
      "stage": "<current_stage>",
      "checkpoint": "<current_checkpoint>",
      "status": "<current_status>",
      "next_role_hint": "implement|review|stop"
    }
  }
}

Read the full file on GitHub · 119 lines

Files

What ships with it

2 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

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 · 119 lines · 16 tokens per session scan A 9c220f8d33d8

Subscribe to this mod's changes

continuous-refactor is a skill published in the GitHub repository brifl/coding-agent-orchestration (20 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 16 tokens to every session and 1,031 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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