Refactoring Guide

Purpose

Systematically improve code structure, readability, maintainability, and extensibility without changing external behavior — applying proven refactoring techniques, identifying code smells, and establishing refactoring workflows that reduce technical debt safely.

Agent Protocol

Trigger

Exact user phrases: "refactor", "code smell", "technical debt", "improve code", "clean up code", "extract method", "restructure", "modernize", "legacy code", "refactoring strategy", "decouple", "extract class".

Input Context

• Codebase size and age (new project → legacy codebase)
• Language and framework (affects available refactoring tools)
• Current pain points (duplication, long methods, tight coupling, slow tests)
• Test coverage (% and quality)
• Refactoring goal (improve readability, enable new feature, reduce bugs, pay down debt)
• Risk tolerance (safety-critical, high-traffic, low-risk internal tool)