Tech Debt Management Skill

What Tech Debt Management Skill does

The workflow has four phases. Identification runs pylint, radon for cyclomatic complexity, pylint duplicate-code detection, bandit and safety for security issues, and pip-audit for dependency health. Assessment scores each item from 1 to 5 on frequency, scope, fix cost and risk, and ranks them with the formula (frequency x scope x risk) / cost. The skill then builds a repayment plan and guides the refactoring using patterns such as extract method, extract class and introduce parameter object.

The repository includes the SKILL.md entry point, a multi-directory scan script that produces a JSON report, a verify_refactor.py script that checks modules still import and methods still exist, a debt register template and a file of practical notes. The author reports a test on a Python RAG system of about 5,000 lines that found six debt items, merged three duplicated blocks and reduced four E-grade complexity functions to C. The tools target Python, but the scoring framework can be adapted to other languages.

Key features

• One-command scan with pylint, radon, bandit, safety and flake8
• Priority scoring across frequency, scope, cost and risk
• Refactoring pattern library and a verify_refactor.py check
• Debt register template in Markdown
• Missing analysis tools are skipped instead of stopping the run

When to use it

• Running a quarterly technical debt review on a Python project
• Deciding which refactoring tasks to tackle first
• Checking that a refactor did not break module imports

Who it is for: Developers and teams who want a structured, repeatable way to find and pay down technical debt with a Hermes agent.

How it fits with Hermes Agent

It is a skill for Hermes Agent, installed with hermes skills install or copied into the Hermes skills directory, and it loads when you ask for a technical debt analysis.

How to install Tech Debt Management Skill

These commands are copied from the project's README. Check the repository for the latest steps before you run them.

hermes skills install https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Vincent-crypto-coder/tech-debt-management-skill/main/SKILL.md

Requirements: Python 3.6+ for the bundled scripts; pylint, radon, safety, bandit and flake8 for full scans, and missing tools are skipped

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