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Agent skill

Zero Tech Debt

by jeremylongshore in jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace

Rebuild a feature as if the correct product architecture existed from day one — remove compatibility cruft, dead abstractions, and historical compromises instead of preserving them.

MITAuto-check passedDevelopment

Install Zero Tech Debt

skills CLI
$ npx skills add jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace --skill zero-tech-debt -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace zero-tech-debt --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/.curated/zero-tech-debt .claude/skills/zero-tech-debt && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
zero-tech-debt
GitHub stars
2.8k
Token cost
~1k tokens
SKILL.md length
394 words
Files
7 (incl. references)
Skills in repo
3,342
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

Rebuild a feature as if the correct product architecture existed from day one — remove compatibility cruft, dead abstractions, and historical compromises instead of preserving them.

  • Works in 7 steps: Confirm scope — Read… → Pre-flight — walk… → Run the 7-step workflow —… → …
  • The operator says refactor properly
  • SKILL.md covers Core Principle, Operating Mode (read this…, Scope Discipline (this is the… and Final Rule
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md

What it does

Zero Tech Debt is an agent skill from jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace. Rebuild a feature as if the correct product architecture existed from day one — remove compatibility cruft, dead abstractions, and historical compromises instead of preserving them. Use when the operator says "refactor properly," "clean up," "rewrite," "modernize," "remove legacy," "simplify," "rethink," "pay down tech debt," or signals frustration with accumulated complexity. Do NOT use for hotfixes, bug repros, surgical patches, or security backports — blast-radius minimization wins there. Trigger with…

Its SKILL.md is about 1k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. The skill folder holds 7 other files, including reference files (for example `references/01-when-to-use.md`, `references/02-preflight-checklist.md` and `references/03-workflow.md`). Compatibility notes: Designed for Claude Code

It sits in Development, covering Technical debt. It works with Bash. The repository describes itself as: Model-agnostic agent-skills platform with a harness-free canonical layer, verified adapters, and the ccpi package manager. Explore at tonsofskills.com. The licence is MIT.

When your agent uses it

  • The operator says refactor properly
  • Pay down tech debt
  • Signals frustration with accumulated complexity
  • Surgical patches

Example prompts

  • “refactor properly,”
  • “clean up,”
  • “rewrite,”
  • “/zero-tech-debt”

Requirements

  • Compatibility (from SKILL.md): Designed for Claude Code
  • Pre-approved tools (allowed-tools): Read, Edit, Glob, Grep, Bash(git:*), Bash(rg:*), Bash(fd:*)

Workflow steps

7 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

  1. Confirm scope — Read references/01-when-to-use.md. If the request smells like a hotfix, security backport, or time-boxed patch, stop and…
  2. Pre-flight — walk references/02-preflight-checklist.md. Every box must be checked before touching code. Tests, callers, rollback path…
  3. Run the 7-step workflow — references/03-workflow.md. Define end state → audit reality → delete before adding → optimize around final shape…
  4. Use the audit patterns — references/04-audit-patterns.md lists the concrete Grep / Bash(rg:*) / Bash(fd:*) targets (TODO/DEPRECATED…
  5. Apply decision filters when choices tie — references/05-decision-filters.md covers tiebreakers and named anti-patterns to avoid.
  6. Apply edits with Edit — once a deletion / rename / consolidation is approved, use Edit to apply the change atomically. Stage with…
  7. Report back in shape-change terms — references/06-outcomes-and-reporting.md. The diff lists every line; the summary makes the…

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit cfae287. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves these tools, so the agent can use them without asking each time:

    • Read
    • Edit
    • Glob
    • Grep
    • Bash(git:*)
    • Bash(rg:*)
    • Bash(fd:*)

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md.

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

  • Compatibility

    Designed for Claude Code

    From compatibility in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

Context cost

Zero Tech Debt loads about 1k tokens when it runs, and up to ~7.1k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 158 tokens; SKILL.md has 394 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~158
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~1k
With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them
~7.1k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace at commit cfae287, republished under its MIT licence (© jeremylongshore). 394 words, ~1,037 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/zero-tech-debt/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder). This skill also uses 6 other files; get the full folder from GitHub.
name
zero-tech-debt
description
Rebuild a feature as if the correct product architecture existed from day one — remove compatibility cruft, dead abstractions, and historical compromises instead of preserving them. Use when the operator says "refactor properly," "clean up," "rewrite," "modernize," "remove legacy," "simplify," "rethink," "pay down tech debt," or signals frustration with accumulated complexity. Do NOT use for hotfixes, bug repros, surgical patches, or security backports — blast-radius minimization wins there. Trigger with "/zero-tech-debt", "do it right this time", "the way it should have been built", "refactor toward intent".
allowed-tools
Read, Edit, Glob, Grep, Bash(git:*), Bash(rg:*), Bash(fd:*)
compatibility
Designed for Claude Code
version
1.1.0
author
Jeremy Longshore <jeremy@intentsolutions.io>
license
MIT
tags
refactoring, tech-debt, architecture, cleanup, modernization, code-quality
user-invocable
true

Zero Tech Debt

Build toward the intended product shape — not the historical sequence of patches, migrations, wrappers, aliases, and temporary decisions that created the current implementation.

The goal is not "minimal diff." The goal is a cleaner, more coherent system with fewer moving parts, fewer hidden assumptions, and lower long-term operational cost.

Core Principle

Treat the current implementation as evidence, not authority.

Preserve only the parts that still serve the intended architecture, UX, reliability model, and operational constraints. Everything else is eligible for deletion.

Operating Mode (read this section every invocation)

  1. Confirm scope — Read references/01-when-to-use.md. If the request smells like a hotfix, security backport, or time-boxed patch, stop and recommend a targeted change instead.
  2. Pre-flight — walk references/02-preflight-checklist.md. Every box must be checked before touching code. Tests, callers, rollback path, single-paragraph end-state description, no in-flight migration, telemetry accounted for. Use Glob to locate test files and Grep / Bash(rg:*) to enumerate external callers of the surface being changed.
  3. Run the 7-step workflow — references/03-workflow.md. Define end state → audit reality → delete before adding → optimize around final shape → collapse duplicate decision logic → remove historical leakage → validate.
  4. Use the audit patterns — references/04-audit-patterns.md lists the concrete Grep / Bash(rg:*) / Bash(fd:*) targets (TODO/DEPRECATED markers, _v2/_old suffixes, stale feature flags, dual-mode forks, etc.). Each match is a candidate, not an automatic deletion.
  5. Apply decision filters when choices tie — references/05-decision-filters.md covers tiebreakers and named anti-patterns to avoid.
  6. Apply edits with Edit — once a deletion / rename / consolidation is approved, use Edit to apply the change atomically. Stage with Bash(git:*) so the operator can review per commit before push.
  7. Report back in shape-change terms — references/06-outcomes-and-reporting.md. The diff lists every line; the summary makes the architectural delta legible.
Show full SKILL.md (113 more words)Show less

Scope Discipline (this is the most common failure mode)

A zero-tech-debt refactor will tempt unbounded scope. Hold the line:

  • One coherent end state per refactor — not three loosely related ones
  • If deletion reveals deeper rot, document it and stop; do not chain refactors mid-flight
  • Resist "while I'm here" additions unrelated to the deletion path
  • New features wait for a separate change
  • If the work cannot fit in a single reviewable unit, split along ownership boundaries — never along file counts

Final Rule

Do not optimize for preserving the past.

Optimize for making the next 2 years of development simpler.

See references/ for the full methodology — each file is a single concern, loadable on demand.

© jeremylongshore, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 6 other files (references) in skills/.curated/zero-tech-debt of jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace.

  • SKILL.md
  • references/01-when-to-use.md
  • references/02-preflight-checklist.md
  • references/03-workflow.md
  • references/04-audit-patterns.md
  • references/05-decision-filters.md
  • references/06-outcomes-and-reporting.md

Open the folder on GitHubat commit cfae287

Compare with similar skills

Zero Tech Debt next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Zero Tech Debt compared with similar skills
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Zero Tech Debt this skilljeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace2.8k—~1kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
FIXME Resolvertailcallhq/forgecode7.6k—~1.1kAutomated safety check: PassApache-2.0
Mole Bug Patternstw93/Mole70k—~2kAutomated safety check: PassGPL-3.0
Systematic Code Refactoringluongnv89/claude-howto42k—~3kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Code Simplification for ego-litecitrolabs/ego-lite17k—~1.2kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Code Refactoring Workflowluongnv89/claude-howto42k—~3.1kAutomated safety check: PassMIT

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Works with

Categories

Questions about Zero Tech Debt

What does Zero Tech Debt do?

Rebuild a feature as if the correct product architecture existed from day one — remove compatibility cruft, dead abstractions, and historical compromises instead of preserving them. Zero Tech Debt is an agent skill from jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace. Rebuild a feature as if the correct product architecture existed from day one — remove compatibility cruft, dead abstractions, and historical compromises instead of preserving them.

When should I use Zero Tech Debt?

Zero Tech Debt fits situations like: the operator says refactor properly; pay down tech debt; signals frustration with accumulated complexity; surgical patches.

How do I install Zero Tech Debt in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace --skill zero-tech-debt -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/.curated/zero-tech-debt in jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace) into .claude/skills/zero-tech-debt in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Zero Tech Debt in Codex?

Run `npx skills add jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace --skill zero-tech-debt -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/.curated/zero-tech-debt in jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace) into .agents/skills/zero-tech-debt in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Zero Tech Debt in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace --skill zero-tech-debt -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/zero-tech-debt, .gemini/skills/zero-tech-debt, .github/skills/zero-tech-debt and .opencode/skills/zero-tech-debt in your project.

What does Zero Tech Debt need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Zero Tech Debt is instructions for the agent only. Its frontmatter pre-approves these tools: Read, Edit, Glob, Grep, Bash(git:*), Bash(rg:*), Bash(fd:*). Compatibility (from SKILL.md): Designed for Claude Code.

Does Zero Tech Debt access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Zero Tech Debt safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Zero Tech Debt use?

Zero Tech Debt is published under the MIT licence (declared in SKILL.md). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Zero Tech Debt use?

About 1k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 4.1k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full. Its references folder adds about 6.1k tokens, read only when the agent opens those files.

What are the alternatives to Zero Tech Debt?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Zero Tech Debt: FIXME Resolver (tailcallhq/forgecode, 7.6k stars), Mole Bug Patterns (tw93/Mole, 70k stars), Systematic Code Refactoring (luongnv89/claude-howto, 42k stars) and Code Simplification for ego-lite (citrolabs/ego-lite, 17k stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Zero Tech Debt?

jeremylongshore (a GitHub user) maintains it in jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace, which has 2,827 GitHub stars. The repository holds 3,342 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on October 10, 2026.

Source: jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.