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Awesome-Agent-Skills-for-Empirical-Research techdebt

Find and fix technical debt including duplicated code, dead code, outdated patterns, and code smells. Run at the end of sessions to clean up.

install
source · Clone the upstream repo
git clone https://github.com/brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Agent-Skills-for-Empirical-Research
Claude Code · Install into ~/.claude/skills/
T=$(mktemp -d) && git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Agent-Skills-for-Empirical-Research "$T" && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r "$T/skills/09-meleantonio-awesome-econ-ai-stuff/_skills/engineering/techdebt" ~/.claude/skills/brycewang-stanford-awesome-agent-skills-for-empirical-research-techdebt && rm -rf "$T"
manifest: skills/09-meleantonio-awesome-econ-ai-stuff/_skills/engineering/techdebt/SKILL.md
source content

Technical Debt Finder

Identify and fix technical debt in the codebase.

What to Look For

Code Duplication

  • Functions with similar logic that could be consolidated
  • Copy-pasted code blocks
  • Repeated patterns that should be abstracted

Dead Code

  • Unused imports
  • Unused functions or classes
  • Commented-out code blocks
  • Unreachable code paths

Outdated Patterns

  • Deprecated API usage
  • Old-style string formatting (% or .format) vs f-strings
  • Type hints using 
    typing.List
    instead of 
    list
  • Missing type hints on public functions

Code Smells

  • Functions longer than 50 lines
  • Too many parameters (more than 5)
  • Deep nesting (more than 3 levels)
  • Magic numbers without constants
  • Overly complex conditionals

Missing Best Practices

  • Missing docstrings on public functions
  • Missing error handling
  • Hardcoded values that should be config
  • Missing tests for critical paths

Workflow

  1. Scan the Codebase

    • Look for patterns matching the issues above
    • Prioritize by impact and ease of fix

  2. Report Findings

    • List issues by category
    • Include file paths and line numbers
    • Estimate severity (high/medium/low)

  3. Fix Issues

    • Start with high-severity, easy fixes
    • Create atomic commits for each fix
    • Run tests after each change

  4. Verify

    • Run linter: 
      ruff check .
    • Run tests: 
      pytest
    • Ensure no new issues introduced

Arguments

Optionally specify a directory or file to focus on.

Usage:

  • /techdebt
    - Scan entire project
  • /techdebt src/
    - Scan specific directory
  • /techdebt src/utils.py
    - Scan specific file

Output

Provide a summary of:

  • Issues found (by category)
  • Issues fixed
  • Remaining items for future sessions