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improve-codebase-architecturelisted

Explore a codebase to find opportunities for architectural improvement, focusing on making the codebase more testable by deepening shallow modules. Use when user wants to improve architecture, find refactoring opportunities, consolidate tightly-coupled modules, or make a codebase more AI-navigable.
mick-gsk/drift · ★ 14 · Code & Development · score 68
Install: claude install-skill mick-gsk/drift
# Improve Codebase Architecture Explore a codebase like an AI would, surface architectural friction, discover opportunities for improving testability, and propose module-deepening refactors as GitHub issue RFCs. A **deep module** (John Ousterhout, "A Philosophy of Software Design") has a small interface hiding a large implementation. Deep modules are more testable, more AI-navigable, and let you test at the boundary instead of inside. ## Process ### 1. Explore the codebase Use the Agent tool with subagent_type=Explore to navigate the codebase naturally. Do NOT follow rigid heuristics — explore organically and note where you experience friction: - Where does understanding one concept require bouncing between many small files? - Where are modules so shallow that the interface is nearly as complex as the implementation? - Where have pure functions been extracted just for testability, but the real bugs hide in how they're called? - Where do tightly-coupled modules create integration risk in the seams between them? - Which parts of the codebase are untested, or hard to test? The friction you encounter IS the signal. ### 2. Present candidates Present a numbered list of deepening opportunities. For each candidate, show: - **Cluster**: Which modules/concepts are involved - **Why they're coupled**: Shared types, call patterns, co-ownership of a concept - **Dependency category**: See [REFERENCE.md](REFERENCE.md) for the four categories - **Test impact**: What existing tests w