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request-refactor-plan

๐ŸŽฏSkill

from mattpocock/skills

VibeIndex|
What it does
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A skill that interviews the developer about a refactoring problem, explores the codebase to verify assertions, evaluates alternative approaches, checks test coverage, and creates a detailed GitHub issue with a plan of tiny, incremental commits.

Overview

Request Refactor Plan is a skill from Matt Pocock's "Skills For Real Engineers" collection that turns a vague refactoring idea into a well-scoped, actionable plan. It interviews you about the refactoring problem, explores the codebase to verify your assertions, evaluates alternative approaches, checks existing test coverage, and produces a detailed GitHub issue ready for implementation.

Key Features

  • Interactive grilling session - Asks targeted questions to understand the refactoring motivation, scope, and constraints before jumping into a plan
  • Codebase-aware verification - Explores the actual code to validate assumptions, find affected areas, and surface risks you might have missed
  • Alternative approach evaluation - Considers multiple ways to achieve the refactoring goal and documents trade-offs between them
  • Test coverage analysis - Checks what tests exist for the code being refactored so nothing breaks silently during the change
  • Ready-to-implement output - Produces a structured GitHub issue with clear acceptance criteria rather than a vague description

Who is this for?

  • Engineers planning non-trivial refactors who want a structured process to reduce risk and avoid scope creep
  • Tech leads who need to document and communicate refactoring plans to their team before starting work
  • Developers using Claude Code or similar agents who want to avoid the common failure of jumping straight into refactoring without a plan
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Same repository

mattpocock/skills(55 items)

request-refactor-plan

Installation

Vibe Index InstallInstalls to .claude/skills/
npx vibeindex add mattpocock/skills --skill request-refactor-plan
skills.sh Installโš  Installs to .agents/skills/
npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill request-refactor-plan
Manual InstallCopy SKILL.md content and save to the path below
~/.claude/skills/request-refactor-plan/SKILL.md

SKILL.md

167,606Installs
11,002
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Last UpdatedMar 26, 2026

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