Mikado Method Skill

A skill for guiding developers through the Mikado Method: a disciplined, graph-driven approach to safe, incremental refactoring that keeps the codebase in a working state at all times.

What is the Mikado Method?

Named after the Pickup Sticks game (Mikado), where you must remove the topmost sticks without disturbing the pile before reaching the high-value stick at the bottom. In software, your goal (the "Mikado") sits beneath a pile of dependencies. The method surfaces those dependencies visually so you can remove them one by one, safely.

Core Definitions