refactoring

Techniques for restructuring Object Pascal code so it is easier to read and maintain while keeping its externally visible behaviour unchanged.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to extract methods or classes, simplify conditions, replace magic numbers, and address other code smells during refactoring.
Why use it?
It helps remove confusing code patterns and prepare older code for new features or tests without changing what the program does.

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/secondlifes/delphi-expert/refactoring
Any agent
npx skills add SecondLifes/delphi-expert --skill refactoring
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/SecondLifes/delphi-expert

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 66 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 636 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 $0.00066 $0.00636
Opus 5 $0.00033 $0.00318
Sonnet 5 $0.00013 $0.00127
Haiku 4.5 $0.00007 $0.00064

Measured 2d ago against content hash 0a67c0b03a95, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

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 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.

.agents/skills/refactoring/SKILL.md · 58 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 58 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Delphi Code Refactoring — Skill

Use this skill when the user requests refactoring or removal of code smells in Object Pascal. Refactoring never changes observable behavior — it only improves the internal structure of the code.

Interface GUIDs: every ['{...}'] in the examples below is a real, unique GUID. When generating new interfaces, always create a fresh GUID (IDE: Ctrl+Shift+G, or TGUID.NewGuid.ToString) — never emit the literal placeholder text {GUID}.

When to Use

  • User asks to "improve", "clean up" or "refactor" existing code
  • When reviewing code and finding code smells
  • When preparing legacy code to receive new functionality
  • Before adding tests to untestable code
  • When answering "why is this code difficult to understand?"

Fundamental Principle

"Refactoring is the art of changing the structure of code without changing its behavior." Always write (or check for) tests before refactoring.

📋 Catalog of Code Smells and Techniques

  1. Extract Method — Long Method
  2. Extract Class — Class with Multiple Responsibilities
  3. Replace Nested Conditionals with Guard Clauses
  4. Replace Magic Numbers with Constants
  5. Replace Conditional with Polymorphism (Strategy/State)
  6. Introduce Parameter Object
  7. Remove with Statement
  8. Extract Interface / Invert Dependency
  9. Rename — Self-Descriptive Names
  10. Inline Method — Unnecessarily Delegate Method

Each technique's before/after example is in the reference files below — read the one covering the smell at hand rather than guessing.

references/

Read only the file(s) relevant to the current task — this skill file is intentionally short; the depth lives in these files.

  • extraction-and-structure.md — techniques 1–6: Extract Method, Extract Class, Guard Clauses, Magic Numbers, Polymorphism, Parameter Object.
  • dependencies-and-cleanup.md — techniques 7–10: remove with, Extract Interface/Invert Dependency, Rename, Inline Method — plus the secure refactoring process (Understand → Test → Small step → Test → Commit → Repeat).

Read the full file on GitHub · 58 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 · 58 lines · 66 tokens per session scan A 0a67c0b03a95

Subscribe to this mod's changes

refactoring is a skill published in the GitHub repository SecondLifes/delphi-expert (3 stars, last pushed 22d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 66 tokens to every session and 636 once invoked, about $0.0003 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 2026-08-31.

Related

Other skills, from other repositories

systematic-debugging

Use when encountering any bug, test failure, or unexpected behavior, before proposing fixes.

obra/superpowers · 21 tokens

brainstorming

You MUST use this before any creative work - creating features, building components, adding functionality, or modifying behavior. Explores user intent, requirements and design before implementation.

obra/superpowers · 37 tokens

auto-perf-optimize

Run agent-driven VS Code performance or memory investigations. Use when asked to launch Code OSS, automate a VS Code scenario, run the Chat memory smoke runner, capture renderer heap snapshots, take workflow screenshots, compare run summaries, or drive a repeatable scenario before heap-snapshot analysis.

microsoft/vscode · 62 tokens

chat-perf

Run chat perf benchmarks and memory leak checks against the local dev build or any published VS Code version. Use when investigating chat rendering regressions, validating perf-sensitive changes to chat UI, or checking for memory leaks in the chat response pipeline.

microsoft/vscode · 51 tokens

chat-pet-sprite-creation

Use when creating or changing VS Code chat pet sprite art, sprite sheets, state animations, eye treatments, Stable/Insiders variants, or pet transitions under src/vs/workbench/contrib/chat/browser/widget/media/chatPet.

microsoft/vscode · 53 tokens

cpu-profile-analysis

Analyze V8/Chrome CPU profiles (.cpuprofile) and DevTools trace files (Trace-.json). Use when: profiling performance, investigating slow functions, comparing code paths, finding bottlenecks, analyzing timeToRequest, understanding call trees from sampling profiler data, analyzing layout/paint/rendering, investigating…

microsoft/vscode · 71 tokens