legacy-code-refactorer

legacy-code-refactorer is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from codebygarv/Ai-skills. It costs 28 tokens per session (344 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A skill for planning small, safer changes in fragile legacy code, especially code with few or no tests. It uses dependency maps, behavior-capture tests, seams, and gradual extraction into newer code.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to refactor oversized classes, tangled monoliths, callback-heavy code, or global-state code step by step.
Why use it?
It makes hidden dependencies and existing behavior visible before you change code, reducing the risk of breaking production systems.

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/codebygarv/ai-skills/legacy-code-refactorer
Any agent
npx skills add codebygarv/Ai-skills --skill legacy-code-refactorer
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/codebygarv/Ai-skills

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for legacy-code-refactorer

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/codebygarv/ai-skills/legacy-code-refactorer.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/codebygarv/ai-skills/legacy-code-refactorer)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/codebygarv/ai-skills/legacy-code-refactorer"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/codebygarv/ai-skills/legacy-code-refactorer.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 28 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 344 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 $0.00028 $0.00344
Opus 5 $0.00014 $0.00172
Sonnet 5 $0.00006 $0.00069
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00034

Measured 4d ago against content hash 09d5f279c16e, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

legacy-code-refactorer 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 4d 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.

skills/development/legacy-code-refactorer/SKILL.md · 34 lines

What it actually says

Purpose

Plan safe, incremental refactorings of complex, untested legacy codebases using proven methodologies (Mikado Method, Characterization Testing, Strangler Fig pattern, Seams) without breaking production behavior.

When to Use

  • Refactoring sprawling 3,000-line "God classes" or legacy spaghetti functions.
  • Untangling deeply coupled monolithic code with zero existing unit tests.
  • Modernizing ancient callback-hell or global-state architectures into clean, testable interfaces.

What to Analyze

  1. Characterization Tests (Golden Master): Capture existing behavior with black-box snapshot tests before touching code.
  2. Mikado Graph: Map dependency prerequisites to identify leaf nodes that can be refactored safely first.
  3. Seam Identification: Find places where behavior can be intercepted and mocked without editing core logic.
  4. Extract Interface & Dependency Injection: Replace direct static class instantiation with injected interfaces.
  5. Incremental Verification: Ensure every micro-step leaves the codebase in a releasable, passing state.

Output Format

  • Mikado Refactoring Dependency Tree: Step-by-step ordered graph of prerequisite tasks.
  • Characterization Test Harness: Safety-net test verifying existing input/output contracts.
  • Before / After Code Diffs: Clean step-by-step refactoring transformations.

Avoid

  • Attempting a "Big Bang" rewrite from scratch that never reaches production.
  • Refactoring internal logic before establishing characterization test safety nets.
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. 4d ago First seen · 34 lines · 28 tokens per session scan A 09d5f279c16e

Subscribe to this mod's changes

legacy-code-refactorer is a skill published in the GitHub repository codebygarv/Ai-skills (24 stars, last pushed 15d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 28 tokens to every session and 344 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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