refactor

A procedure for restructuring several code files while preserving behavior. It establishes a test and type baseline, applies changes file by file, and verifies the result, with rollback after repeated failed fixes.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it for multi-file structural changes such as renaming symbols, moving modules, extracting code, splitting large files, merging files, or updating callers after a signature change.
Why use it?
It reduces the risk of regressions during renames, moves, extractions, splits, merges, and function-signature changes.

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/sethgammon/citadel/refactor
Any agent
npx skills add SethGammon/Citadel --skill refactor
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/SethGammon/Citadel

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 60 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,941 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 $0.00060 $0.01941
Opus 5 $0.00030 $0.00971
Sonnet 5 $0.00012 $0.00388
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00194

Measured 2d ago against content hash 498345115efe, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

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.

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/refactor/SKILL.md · 209 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 209 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

/refactor — Safe Multi-File Refactoring

Orientation

Use /refactor when you need to:

  • Rename a symbol, file, or module across the codebase
  • Extract a function, component, hook, class, or module from existing code
  • Inline a function or module back into its callers
  • Move a file or set of files to a new location
  • Split a large file into smaller pieces
  • Merge related files into one
  • Change a function signature and update all call sites

Don't use when: debugging a specific bug (use /systematic-debugging); adding new features (use /marshal or /scaffold); deleting dead code (use /marshal for a targeted cleanup).

Boundary with /organize: /refactor changes code structure within files (extract, inline, split, merge, rename) and moves files as part of those operations. Repository-wide file/directory placement, naming sweeps, and where-does-this-belong decisions are /organize.

Behavior does not change. Tests pass before and after, no new type errors — the refactoring is correct.

Commands

Command Behavior
/refactor rename [old] to [new] Rename symbol, file, or module
/refactor extract [target] from [source] Extract function/component/module
/refactor inline [target] Inline a function/module into callers
/refactor move [source] to [dest] Move file(s) with import updates
/refactor split [file] Split a file into logical pieces
/refactor merge [files...] Merge related files into one
/refactor [freeform description] Auto-detect refactoring type from description
/refactor --dry-run [any above] Plan only, show what would change

Protocol

Phase 1: BASELINE

Run typecheck (via node scripts/run-with-timeout.js 300 npm run typecheck) and tests. Record error/failure counts — pre-existing issues are not your responsibility, but you must not add to them. Warn if there are uncommitted changes in files you plan to modify.

Baseline established:
  Typecheck: {pass | N errors (pre-existing)}
  Tests: {pass | N failures (pre-existing) | no test suite found}
  Git: {clean | M files with uncommitted changes}

Read the full file on GitHub · 209 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 · 209 lines · 60 tokens per session scan A 498345115efe

Subscribe to this mod's changes

refactor is a skill published in the GitHub repository SethGammon/Citadel (914 stars, last pushed 5d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 60 tokens to every session and 1,941 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 2026-08-30.

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