ReddRadar
Agent skill
tech-debt-prioritizer
Scores and prioritizes technical debt by impact, risk, and effort. Provides ranked backlog with ROI analysis and quarterly paydown recommendations. Use for "tech debt", "technical debt management", "code quality", or "refactoring priorities".
Install this agent skill to your Project
npx add-skill https://github.com/patricio0312rev/skills/tree/main/architecture/tech-debt-prioritizer
SKILL.md
Tech Debt Prioritizer
Systematically prioritize and pay down technical debt.
Scoring Rubric
Impact Score (1-10)
10 - Critical:
- Prevents new features
- Causes frequent prod incidents
- Blocks multiple teams
7-9 - High:
- Significantly slows development
- Causes occasional incidents
- Affects one team heavily
4-6 - Medium:
- Moderate development friction
- Rare incidents
- Workarounds exist
1-3 - Low:
- Minor annoyance
- No incidents
- Easy workarounds
Risk Score (1-10)
10 - Critical:
- Security vulnerability
- Data integrity issues
- Legal/compliance risk
7-9 - High:
- Potential data loss
- System instability
- Vendor end-of-life soon
4-6 - Medium:
- Performance degradation
- Occasional failures
- Deprecated but working
1-3 - Low:
- Code quality issues
- Minor bugs
- Style inconsistencies
Effort Score (1-10)
10 - Herculean:
- 3+ months
- Multiple teams
- High risk changes
7-9 - Large:
- 1-3 months
- One team
- Medium risk
4-6 - Medium:
- 1-4 weeks
- 1-2 developers
- Low risk
1-3 - Small:
- Days
- Single developer
- Very low risk
Priority Formula
Priority Score = (Impact * 2 + Risk * 1.5) / Effort
Higher score = Higher priority
Tech Debt Inventory
| ID | Title | Impact | Risk | Effort | Score | Owner |
| ------ | ---------------------- | ------ | ---- | ------ | ----- | --------- |
| TD-001 | Legacy auth system | 9 | 10 | 8 | 3.7 | Auth Team |
| TD-002 | No database indexes | 8 | 7 | 3 | 7.8 | Backend |
| TD-003 | Monolithic build | 7 | 4 | 6 | 4.0 | DevOps |
| TD-004 | Duplicate API logic | 6 | 3 | 4 | 4.1 | Backend |
| TD-005 | Outdated dependencies | 5 | 8 | 2 | 9.0 | All Teams |
| TD-006 | Missing error handling | 4 | 6 | 3 | 5.7 | Backend |
| TD-007 | Poor test coverage | 4 | 5 | 7 | 2.3 | All Teams |
| TD-008 | Inconsistent naming | 3 | 2 | 5 | 1.6 | Frontend |
**Sorted by Priority Score:**
1. TD-005: Outdated dependencies (9.0)
2. TD-002: No database indexes (7.8)
3. TD-006: Missing error handling (5.7)
4. TD-004: Duplicate API logic (4.1)
5. TD-003: Monolithic build (4.0)
...
Detailed Assessment Template
## TD-002: No Database Indexes
### Description
Critical queries lack indexes, causing slow response times and high CPU usage.
### Impact (8/10)
- Search queries take 2-5 seconds (should be <500ms)
- Database CPU at 85% during peak hours
- User complaints about slow searches
- Blocks performance optimization work
### Risk (7/10)
- Database may crash under load
- Losing customers to slow experience
- Cannot scale without addressing
### Effort (3/10)
- Identify missing indexes: 2 days
- Add indexes: 1 day
- Test performance: 1 day
- Deploy: 1 day
**Total: 5 days**
### ROI Analysis
**Cost:** 5 developer-days = $5,000
**Benefit:**
- 80% faster queries
- 50% less DB CPU
- Better user experience
- Enables scaling
**ROI:** Very High
### Implementation Plan
1. Run EXPLAIN on slow queries
2. Identify missing indexes
3. Add indexes in development
4. Test query performance
5. Deploy to production (off-peak)
6. Monitor impact
### Dependencies
- None (can start immediately)
### Owner
Backend Team
### Status
Backlog → Prioritized for Q1
Quarterly Paydown Plan
# Q1 2024 Tech Debt Paydown
**Budget:** 20% of engineering time (4 weeks total)
## Week 1-2: High Priority
- TD-005: Update dependencies (2 days)
- TD-002: Add database indexes (5 days)
- TD-006: Add error handling (3 days)
## Week 3: Medium Priority
- TD-004: Eliminate duplicate logic (5 days)
## Week 4: Quick Wins
- TD-012: Fix broken tests (2 days)
- TD-015: Remove dead code (2 days)
- TD-018: Update README (1 day)
## Success Metrics
- Reduce P1 incidents by 30%
- Improve deployment confidence
- Decrease development friction
- Team morale improvement
Decision Framework
When to Pay Down Debt
Pay down NOW if:
- Security vulnerability
- Causing frequent incidents
- Blocking critical features
- High impact, low effort
Pay down SOON if:
- Slowing development significantly
- Medium-high risk
- Reasonable effort
Defer if:
- Low impact and low risk
- Very high effort
- Better alternatives exist
When to Increase Budget
**Indicators debt budget needs increase:**
- Velocity declining
- Incident rate increasing
- Developer satisfaction down
- Onboarding time increasing
- "It's too hard to..." complaints
Tech Debt Registry
interface TechDebt {
id: string;
title: string;
description: string;
// Scoring
impact: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10;
risk: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10;
effort: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10;
// Metadata
owner: string;
createdAt: Date;
targetQuarter?: string;
status: "backlog" | "prioritized" | "in-progress" | "done";
// Context
affectedSystems: string[];
relatedDebt: string[];
// Plan
implementationPlan?: string;
roi?: "low" | "medium" | "high" | "very-high";
}
Quarterly Review Process
1. **Collect new debt** (Week 1)
- Team submits tech debt items
- Engineering leads review and score
2. **Prioritize** (Week 2)
- Calculate priority scores
- Review high-priority items
- Assign owners
3. **Plan quarter** (Week 3)
- Allocate 10-20% capacity
- Schedule work
- Set success metrics
4. **Review results** (End of quarter)
- Measure impact
- Adjust process
- Celebrate wins
Best Practices
- Track systematically: Don't rely on memory
- Score objectively: Use rubric consistently
- Regular reviews: Quarterly minimum
- Budget time: 10-20% of sprint capacity
- Quick wins: Include easy items for morale
- Measure impact: Track improvements
- Make visible: Dashboard, reports
- No judgment: Tech debt is normal
Output Checklist
- Tech debt items catalogued
- Impact/risk/effort scores assigned
- Priority scores calculated
- Items ranked by priority
- Top 10 items detailed
- Quarterly plan created
- Budget allocated (% of time)
- Owners assigned
- Success metrics defined
- Review cadence established
Recommended Agent Skills
Expand your agent's capabilities with these related and highly-rated skills.
patricio0312rev/skills
rate-limiting-abuse-protection
Implements rate limiting and abuse prevention with per-route policies, IP/user-based limits, sliding windows, safe error responses, and observability. Use when adding "rate limiting", "API protection", "abuse prevention", or "DDoS protection".
patricio0312rev/skills
rbac-permissions-builder
Implements role-based access control with permission matrix, route guards, policy functions, and UI permission hints. Provides middleware/guards, helper utilities, test suggestions, and permission checking patterns. Use when building "RBAC", "permissions", "access control", or "authorization".
patricio0312rev/skills
websocket-realtime-builder
Implements real-time features using WebSockets with Socket.io, rooms, authentication, and reconnection handling. Use when users request "real-time updates", "WebSocket", "Socket.io", "live chat", or "push notifications".
patricio0312rev/skills
webhook-receiver-hardener
Secures webhook receivers with signature verification, retry handling, deduplication, idempotency keys, and error responses. Provides verification code, dedupe storage strategy, runbook for incidents. Use when implementing "webhooks", "webhook security", "event receivers", or "third-party integrations".
patricio0312rev/skills
auth-module-builder
Implements secure authentication patterns including login/registration, session management, JWT tokens, password hashing, cookie settings, and CSRF protection. Provides auth routes, middleware, security configurations, and threat model documentation. Use when building "authentication", "login system", "JWT auth", or "session management".
patricio0312rev/skills
rest-to-graphql-migrator
Migrates REST APIs to GraphQL incrementally with schema stitching, REST datasources, and gradual endpoint migration. Use when users request "migrate to GraphQL", "REST to GraphQL", "GraphQL wrapper", or "API modernization".
Didn't find tool you were looking for?