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 skills add JayRHa/AgentSkills --skill refactoring-guidegit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/JayRHa/AgentSkillsWrote 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/jayrha/agentskills/refactoring-guide)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/jayrha/agentskills/refactoring-guide"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/jayrha/agentskills/refactoring-guide/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/jayrha/agentskills/refactoring-guide"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/jayrha/agentskills/refactoring-guide.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" 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 5.1 | $0.00152 | $0.01543 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00061 | $0.00617 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00030 | $0.00309 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00015 | $0.00154 |
Grade A, and why
refactoring-guide 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 1mo 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 — 96 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Refactoring Guide
Overview
Refactoring is changing the internal structure of code without changing its observable behavior. The goal is readability, maintainability, and testability — never new features and never bug fixes in the same step.
Keywords: refactor, clean up, simplify, extract function, extract method, extract variable, inline, rename, remove duplication, reduce nesting, decompose conditional, guard clause, god class, long function, code smell, DRY, separation of concerns, make testable, reduce cyclomatic complexity.
The two non-negotiable rules:
- Behavior must not change. No new functionality, no bug fixes, no API changes in a refactoring commit. If you spot a bug, note it and fix it in a separate commit.
- Tests stay green at every step. Refactor in small steps; run tests after each. If there are no tests, write characterization tests first (see
references/characterization-tests.md).
When the task mixes refactoring with feature work, separate them: "make the change easy (this may be hard), then make the easy change." Refactor first, commit, then build the feature.
Workflow
Follow this loop. Do not batch many changes before testing.
-
Establish a safety net.
- Find and run the existing test suite. Confirm it passes before you touch anything.
- If coverage of the target code is weak or absent, write characterization tests that pin current behavior (including current quirks). See
references/characterization-tests.md. - Identify how to run the tests fast (single file / single test) so the inner loop is quick.
-
Identify the smell and pick ONE refactoring.
- Scan the target code against the smell catalog in
references/code-smells.md. - Map the smell to a refactoring using the table in
references/refactoring-catalog.md. - Choose the smallest refactoring that improves the worst problem first. Resist doing everything at once.
- Scan the target code against the smell catalog in
-
Apply the smallest mechanical step.
- Prefer automated/IDE refactorings (rename, extract) — they are safer than hand edits.
- Follow the mechanics in
references/refactoring-catalog.mdstep by step. - Keep each edit tiny: one extraction, one rename, one guard clause.
What ships with it
5 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.
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.
- 1mo ago First seen · 96 lines · 152 tokens per session scan A b0e516fa4229
refactoring-guide is a skill published in the GitHub repository JayRHa/AgentSkills (12 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 152 tokens to every session and 1,543 once invoked, about $0.0006 per session on Opus 5.5. 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 2026-08-31.
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