brooks-debt
Tech debt assessment that identifies, classifies, and prioritizes maintainability problems — helping teams build a refactoring roadmap — drawing on twelve classic engineering books. Triggers when: user asks about tech debt, refactoring priorities, what to clean up first, or asks "why is this so hard to change?", "what should we fix first?", or "how do I justify refactoring to management?". Do NOT trigger for: server health checks, HTTP /health endpoints, Kubernetes probes, database health, or application uptime — "health" in those contexts is infrastructure, not code quality. Also not for sing
npx skills add hyhmrright/brooks-lint --skill brooks-debt --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# Brooks-Lint — Tech Debt Assessment ## Setup Read in order: 1. `../_shared/common.md` — Iron Law, Project Config, Report Template, Health Score 2. `../_shared/source-coverage.md` — book coverage, exceptions, tradeoffs 3. `../_shared/decay-risks.md` — symptom definitions and source attributions 4. `debt-guide.md` (this directory) — the debt classification framework ## Process **Scope:** if the user did not describe the codebase or point to specific areas, apply Auto Scope Detection (`../_shared/common.md`) first. 1. Scan for all six decay risks (Step 1 of the guide); list every finding before scoring 2. Apply the Pain × Spread priority formula and classify debt intent (Steps 2–3 of the guide) 3. Group findings by decay risk (Step 4 of the guide) 4. Output using the Report Template from common.md, plus the Debt Summary Table **Mode line in report:** `Tech Debt Assessment`
- Setup
- Process
What does the brooks-debt skill do?
Tech debt assessment that identifies, classifies, and prioritizes maintainability problems — helping teams build a refactoring roadmap — drawing on twelve classic engineering books. Triggers when: user asks about tech debt, refactoring priorities, what to clean up first, or asks "why is this so hard to change?", "what should we fix first?", or "how do I justify refactoring to management?". Do NOT trigger for: server health checks, HTTP /health endpoints, Kubernetes probes, database health, or application uptime — "health" in those contexts is infrastructure, not code quality. Also not for sing
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add hyhmrright/brooks-lint --skill brooks-debt --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From hyhmrright/brooks-lint, a repository with 1,284 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.