/improve-architecture

---
name: improve-architecture
description: Audit an area of the codebase and propose the smallest structural moves that improve it - untangle boundaries, kill duplication, fix seams, break cycles. Produces a prioritized plan and decision records, not a rewrite. Use when a codebase feels tangled, hard to change, or is becoming a ball of mud, or when asked to improve or refactor architecture.
user-invocable: true
---

# improve-architecture

Invest in the shape of the system a little at a time rather than paying for a
rewrite later. This skill diagnoses and proposes; it does not rewrite on its own.

## Method

1. **Map first.** Get the current shape before judging it - entry points,
   modules, data flow, who calls whom. Reuse `module-map` for the one-screen
   view; do not skip to opinions.
2. **Find the strain.** Look for the load-bearing problems, not style nits:
   - God modules that everything imports and nothing can change safely.
   - Leaky boundaries - a module reaching into another's internals instead of
     its surface.
   - Duplicated logic that drifts (the same rule implemented three ways).
   - Wrong seams - the code is split where it does not bend and fused where it
     does.
   - Cyclic dependencies.
   - A shape that fights the domain (see `domain-modeling` - boundaries in code
     should track boundaries in the language).