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name: long-term-debt-tracker description: Tracks, classifies, and prioritizes technical debt (code, spec, and process) over time. Use to prevent silent rot. triggers: [periodic-maintenance, post-incident, technical-debt-audit] outputs: [debt-backlog, risk-priority-matrix]

Long Term Debt Tracker

Purpose

Provides visibility into the "hidden costs" of past decisions. By tracking debt, the system can advocate for refactoring or spec updates before they cause a critical failure.

When to use this skill

• During regular maintenance windows
• After an incident where debt was a contributing factor
• When "temporary" workarounds are introduced to meet a deadline

Tracking Steps

1. Identify Recurring Pain Points: Where do developers or the AI struggle most? (e.g., "The auth module is always flaky").
2. Classify Debt:
   • Code Debt: Hard-to-test logic, duplication.
   • Spec Debt: Outdated requirements, missing edge cases.
   • Process Debt: Slow CI/CD, manual approval bottlenecks.
3. Rank by Risk: Use a Probability x Impact matrix to prioritize.
4. Propose Remediation: Suggest specific tasks or skills to address the debt.

Decision Tree

Copyflowchart TD
    A[Identify Debt] --> B{High Risk?}
    B -->|Yes| C[Escalate for Immediate Fix]
    B -->|No| D{High Maintenance Cost?}
    D -->|Yes| E[Add to Next Sprint]
    D -->|No| F[Log in Backlog]
    E --> G[Link to Spec/Incident]
    F --> G

Review Checklist

1. Quantification: Is the cost of the debt (e.g., extra dev hours) estimated?
2. Origin: Is it documented why this debt was introduced (e.g., "rushed for MVP")?
3. Trend: Is the project debt increasing or decreasing over time?
4. Scope: Does the remediation plan address the root cause?

How to provide feedback

• Be specific: "The entry 'Refactor Auth' is too broad."
• Explain why: "Broad debt items are never prioritized because they lack clear scope."
• Suggest alternatives: "Break into: 'Extract JWT logic from Controller' and 'Add unit tests for refresh-token'."

Untracked debt compounds silently.