--- name: Improve Codebase Architecture slug: codebase-architecture-review category: Quality description: Scans a codebase for architectural friction and proposes deepening refactors that improve locality, testability, and AI navigability. Use it when you want a visual review of shallow modules and coupled seams. github: "https://github.com/rengwu/wayfinder-maps/tree/main/skills/.optional/improve-codebase-architecture" language: Go stars: 59 forks: 1 install: "git clone https://github.com/rengwu/wayfinder-maps" added: 2026-07-16T13:43:08.449Z last_synced: 2026-07-18T04:41:45.825Z canonical_url: "https://dirskills.com/skills/codebase-architecture-review" --- # Improve Codebase Architecture Scans a codebase for architectural friction and proposes deepening refactors that improve locality, testability, and AI navigability. Use it when you want a visual review of shallow modules and coupled seams. **Install:** `git clone https://github.com/rengwu/wayfinder-maps` ## README # Improve Codebase Architecture Surface architectural friction and propose **deepening opportunities** — refactors that turn shallow modules into deep ones. The aim is testability and AI-navigability. This command is _informed_ by the project's domain model and built on a shared design vocabulary: - Run the `codebase-design` skill for the architecture vocabulary (**module**, **interface**, **depth**, **seam**, **adapter**, **leverage**, **locality**) and its principles (the deletion test, "the interface is the test surface", "one adapter = hypothetical seam, two = real"). Use these terms exactly in every suggestion — don't drift into "component," "service," "API," or "boundary." - The domain language in `CONTEXT.md` gives names to good seams; ADRs in `docs/adr/` record decisions this command should not re-litigate. If neither exists, proceed silently. ## Process ### 1. Explore Read the project's domain glossary (`CONTEXT.md`) and any ADRs in the area you're touching first, if they exist. Then walk the codebase — via a read-only exploration subagent if your environment supports spawning one, otherwise directly. Don't follow rigid heuristics — explore organically and note where you experience friction: - Where does understanding one concept require bouncing between many small modules? - Where are modules **shallow** — interface 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 (no **locality**)? - Where do tightly-coupled modules leak across their seams? - Which parts of the codebase are untested, or hard to test through their current interface? Apply the **deletion test** to anything you suspect is shallow: would deleting it concentrate complexity, or just move it? A "yes, concentrates" is the signal you want. ### 2. Present candidates as an HTML report Write a self-contained HTML file to the OS temp directory so nothing lands in the repo. Resolve the temp dir from `$TMPDIR`, falling back to `/tmp` (or `%TEMP%` on Windows), and write to `/architecture-review-.html` so each run gets a fresh file. Open it for the user — `xdg-open ` on Linux, `open ` on macOS, `start ` on Windows — and tell them the absolute path. The report uses **Tailwind via CDN** for layout and styling, and **Mermaid via CDN** for diagrams where a graph/flow/sequence reliably communicates the structure. Mix Mermaid with hand-crafted CSS/SVG visuals — use Mermaid when relationships are graph-shaped (call graphs, dependencies, sequences), and hand-built divs/SVG when you want something more editorial (mass diagrams, cross-sections, collapse animations). Each candidate gets a **before/after visualisation**. Be visual. For each candidate, render a card with: - **Files** — which files/modules are involved - **Problem** — why the current architecture is causing friction - **Solution** — plain English description of what would change - **Benefits** — explained in terms of locality and leverage, and how tests would improve - **Before / After diagram** — side-by-side, custom-drawn, illustrating the shallowness and the deepening - **Recommendation strength** — one of `Strong`, `Worth exploring`, `Speculative`, rendered as a badge End the report with a **Top recommendation** section: which candidate you'd tackle first and why. **Use CONTEXT.md vocabulary for the domain, and the `codebase-design` vocabulary for the architecture.** If `CONTEXT.md` defines "Order," talk about "the Order intake module" — not "the FooBarHandler," and not "the Order service." **ADR conflicts**: if a candidate contradicts an existing ADR, only surface it when the friction is real enough to warrant revisiting the ADR. Mark it clearly in the card (e.g. a warning callout: _"contradicts ADR-0007 — but worth reopening because…"_). Don't list every theoretical refactor an ADR forbids. See [HTML-REPORT.md](HTML-REPORT.md) for the full HTML scaffold, diagram patterns, and styling guidance. Do NOT propose interfaces yet. After the file is written, ask the user: "Which of these would you like to explore?" ### 3. Grilling loop Once the user picks a candidate, interview them relentlessly to walk the design tree — one question at a time, a recommended answer offered with each, decision branches resolved one by one: constraints, dependencies, the shape of the deepened module, what sits behind the seam, what tests survive. Look facts up in the codebase; put the decisions to the user and wait for each answer. Side effects happen inline as decisions crystallize — apply the `domain-modeling` skill to keep the domain model current as you go: - **Naming a deepened module after a concept not in `CONTEXT.md`?** Add the term to `CONTEXT.md`. Create the file lazily if it doesn't exist. - **Sharpening a fuzzy term during the conversation?** Update `CONTEXT.md` right there. - **User rejects the candidate with a load-bearing reason?** Offer an ADR, framed as: _"Want me to record this as an ADR so future architecture reviews don't re-suggest it?"_ Only offer when the reason would actually be needed by a future explorer to avoid re-suggesting the same thing — skip ephemeral reasons ("not worth it right now") and self-evident ones. - **Want to explore alternative interfaces for the deepened module?** Use the `codebase-design` skill's design-it-twice pattern (parallel subagents where the environment supports them, sequential independent designs otherwise).