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.
npx agentmods add skills/developersglobal/ai-agent-skills/refactoringnpx skills add DevelopersGlobal/ai-agent-skills --skill refactoringgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/DevelopersGlobal/ai-agent-skillsWrote 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.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/developersglobal/ai-agent-skills/refactoring)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/developersglobal/ai-agent-skills/refactoring"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/developersglobal/ai-agent-skills/refactoring.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>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.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5 | $0.00022 | $0.00647 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00011 | $0.00324 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00004 | $0.00129 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00002 | $0.00065 |
Grade A, and why
refactoring 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.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 78 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Overview
Refactoring changes the internal structure of code without changing its external behavior. The keyword is "without" — if behavior changes, it's not refactoring, it's modification. This skill enforces safe refactoring with tests as the safety net.
When to Use
- When code is hard to understand or extend
- When duplication makes maintenance risky
- Before adding a feature to a messy area of code
- Never: "while also adding feature X" — refactor separately
Process
Step 1: Establish a Safety Net
- Before touching a single line: ensure there are tests covering the code to be refactored.
- If tests are missing: add characterization tests first. These capture current behavior, not desired behavior.
- Run the tests. They should all pass. This is your baseline.
Verify: Tests pass. They cover the code being refactored.
Step 2: Refactor in Micro-Steps
- Make the smallest meaningful change.
- Run tests after EVERY change — not after 10 changes.
- If tests break: revert immediately and take a smaller step.
- Never batch multiple refactoring changes together.
Verify: Tests pass after every individual change.
Step 3: One Thing at a Time
- Refactoring types cannot be mixed in one step:
- Extract method → separate commit
- Rename → separate commit
- Move → separate commit
- "Refactor and also fix this" is not refactoring — it's two PRs.
Verify: This commit does exactly one type of refactoring.
Step 4: Verify No Behavior Change
- Run the full test suite.
- If integration/E2E tests exist: run them too.
- Compare external API responses before and after (if applicable).
Verify: All tests pass. No observable behavior change.
Common Rationalizations (and Rebuttals)
| Excuse | Rebuttal |
|---|---|
| "I'll add tests after refactoring" | You can't verify a behavior-preserving refactor without tests before the refactor. |
| "This change is obviously safe" | Obvious safety is how production incidents happen. Run the tests. |
| "I'll just do a quick cleanup" | "Quick cleanup" that changes behavior is a bug, not a refactor. |
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.
- 4d ago First seen · 78 lines · 22 tokens per session scan A 20508140cd99
refactoring is a skill published in the GitHub repository DevelopersGlobal/ai-agent-skills (65 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 22 tokens to every session and 647 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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